New Sister
by tvfan69
Summary: Not knowing what to believe Karai runs away after the events of "Wormquake". She doesn't know where she's going, she just knows she can't stay where she is. Meanwhile, in Northhampton, a little girl named Haleigh is trying to deal with the loss of her parents. When the two girls meet is it just a chance encounter? Or can they help each other?
1. Chapter 1

Karai's breath caught in her throat when her hand wrapped tightly around the railing to the fire-escape. For a moment she just dangled frozen, as if she were unsure as to if she was truly still alive or not.

After a moment it processed and she let out the air in her lungs and pulled herself onto the small steel balcony. She hadn't fallen far and could still hear the battle on the roof above, and took a moment of debate on whether or not to return to it. She knew she should, they were closer than ever to finishing off Hamato Yoshi and the turtles. Earlier this morning she would've thrown herself right back into the line of fire if it meant she could watch that wretched rat pay for what he did to her mother, for what he did to her. But now she was having doubts. Earlier Leo had said that her real name was Miwa, had the earthquake not hit just then and buried him in rubble she would've asked what the heck he was talking about. At first she thought maybe he was crazy but then, just two hours later, he had tried telling her that Splinter was her true father. She didn't believe him then and she wouldn't believe him now if it hadn't been for her earlier conversation with Splinter, the way he spoke of her mother. She could hear it in his voice that he had loved her mother, and although that lined up with what Shredder had told her, what Splinter did when blacking out did not. He was shot with a poison dart, by those working for a man who wants him dead. He knew he may never wake up from the sleep which he fell into, so why would he choose his last words to be a simple name, "Miwa", as he reached out desperately to his teenage should've been assassin, if it was a lie?

Deciding that maybe she should rejoin the battle, rejoin and see if Leo could give her any answers, Karai stood on the railing of the fire-escape. Her position was hidden by the supports of a billboard on the roof, she could see everyone but not everyone could see her. She saw Tiger Claw about to finish Splinter. She knew she should let him, she knew this was her father's mission in life, to see Master Splinter as nothing more than a dead body. But now she had her doubts, and she couldn't let an innocent man die. Making up her mind quickly before she could talk herself out of it she picked up a small rock from the gravel of the roof and chucked it hard at Tiger Claw, effectively hitting him in the side of the head.

"AH! Who dares!?" The mutant demanded as he looked to the side, Karai couldn't help but smirk just a tiny bit, she had been wanting to do that since meeting Tiger Claw just hours earlier.

She saw that Leo was the one to take advantage of her distraction, not surprising, and delivered a flying kick right to his nose, again Karai had no complaints about that. Tiger Claw fell over the side of the roof and Karai could only be grateful that it wasn't the same side she was watching from. She watched as Leo hurried to his sensei's side and look around for the source of the flying rock, Karai knew it would be smarter if she hid herself but instead she remained in sight, but after Leo turned his attention back to Splinter she couldn't be sure if he had seen her.

* * *

The sun came up not long after the battle, Shredder's henchmen had all begun their walk home with their tales between their legs right after Tiger Claw was swallowed. But Karai instead moved her hiding spot to the backside of the billboard, she was not yet ready to face the Shredder.

The turtles, human friends, and Splinter, were doing nothing more than congratulating each other on the night, and Karai was about to leave when she heard Raphael.

"But what about Karai?" He asked and she found herself halting her departure, instead she remained where she was and held her breath.

"I still can't believe that evil witch is your daughter. Um sorry to be so honest" Karai frowned at April O'Neil's comment but at the same time she understood it, after everything she's done she is a witch.

"Perhaps one day she will believe the truth, but that his her decision" Karai couldn't believe what she was hearing.

They were telling the truth, they didn't know she was listening and yet they still continued with their story. Now she had to go, she couldn't take any more of this, she couldn't listen to any more! Quickly she leapt off the building and made her way back to Shredder's hideout.

* * *

"Karai, where have you been?" Shredder demanded coldly when she entered his thrown room, she bowed her head and almost wished that she hadn't thrown that rock, dealing with Shredder in a good mood was hard enough but in a bad mood she liked to avoid him at all possible costs.

"Your little henchmen didn't tell you?" She asked in an irritated voice "I was knocked off of a rooftop during the fight, just woke up in a dumpster" she lied, Shredder eyed her skeptically

"The mission was a failure" he informed her, she narrowed her eyes and although Shredder most likely was assuming it was because she was angry Hamato Yoshi still lives Karai knew the real reason, any decent father would've been concerned to hear what she had just told him.

* * *

As the day went on things only grew worse, first off Shredder was extra harsh in training and second Karai got her ass handed to her by Xever.

"Someone is off her game today" the fish teased the girl who he had just slammed down onto her back.

Karai sat up with little more than a grunt and a hand to her spinning head, which had also bounced forcefully against the hardwood floor of the dojo.

"I think I got a concussion from falling off the roof" she lied as she stood to face the fish-man for a third time, and was beat about four more times after that.

* * *

After a quick supper of fried noodles, since she was really in no mood to cook anything complicated or that took longer than fifteen minutes, and even that pushed her patience, Karai went to her room. She knew it was still early, earlier than she normally went to bed, but she didn't care, she just wanted this day to be over. She couldn't stop thinking about what she had been told, what she was starting to believe more and more as the hours passed. Sitting down on her bed she sighed and took out the torn picture of her mother

"Wonder why he ripped it" she sarcastically muttered to herself, that thought had crossed her mind before but she never focused on it, she couldn't bring herself to.

Putting the picture back in her pocket Karai narrowed her eyes, she wasn't too sure what to believe but she was sure of one thing, she had to get out of here.

Standing up she walked across the room and dug her civilian clothes out of her laundry basket, quickly changing into them. She sighed when she realized that her suitcase was the only form of luggage case she had, she owned no backpack or purse, nothing she could casually carry around with her.

"Oh well" she said to herself as she transferred the torn picture of her mother from her black leggings into her jeans pocket.

She then dropped the leggings to the floor and grabbed her Juji-ken sword, forcing it to fit inside of the zip up pocket in her jacket. She also secured her wallet inside of the pocket, though it only contained her drivers license and a total of fifty-two dollars and some-odd cents. She thought about taking her make-up but decided that was to much too carry, besides it's not like she would see anyone she knows.

With one last glance around the mostly bare bedroom Karai made sure she wasn't forgetting anything, and she wasn't. She didn't bother leaving a note for Shredder, instead she just opened her window and after one final look back she left.


	2. Chapter 2

As she moved quickly across the rooftops of New York Karai heard the bells of a church somewhere off in the distance and stopped to listen.

_One, two, three, four… _she mentally counted the chimes until she reached the number twelve and they stopped ringing, it was midnight.

Continuing across the roofs she kept one eye on alert for the foot clan and the other for the turtles, not that she suspected she would see either. The foot wouldn't realize that she had left for another five hours at the very earliest, and even by then she would be long gone. As for the turtles, last night had been long and tiring. She knew that they wouldn't patrol tonight, they would take the night to sleep and regain their strength; but she couldn't do that.

She soon reached the city limits and guessed that about twenty minutes had passed since she heard the church bells. Looking ahead all Karai could see was the highway and frowned, she hated the idea walking out in the open where she would be seen by travelers as they drove along the endless road but she had no other choice, not that she could see anyway. She looked back over her shoulder at New York, everything had been so much simpler before she came here.

"I'm sorry" she murmured, she didn't know who she was apologizing to. Perhaps it was Shredder or Leo, her leaving had to hurt one of them.

Silently she made her way down from the building via the fire-escape and landed with a thud on the pavement below.

She looked at the sign not even thirty feet from her,** Now Leaving New York City**, Karai didn't know when, or if, she would ever read the other side of the sign but she walked past it all the same.

* * *

Karai walked through the night. She wanted nothing more than to sleep, even if it meant sleeping in the woods on the edge of the highway, but she couldn't, she had to put enough distance between her and the city. Of course she knew it would take hours for Shredder to notice she was gone, and maybe hours after that for him to look for her. She also knew that he wouldn't suspect she'd left the city, it might even take weeks for that possibility to cross his mind. But still she wanted to go as far as her body would allow her before resting.

Around what she assumed to be ten in the morning, based on the sun, she found herself looking up at a sign for a rest stop and decided to follow it, she needed some kind of breakfast. It took almost an hour, and felt longer, for Karai to actually reached the rest stop but once she made it her pace quickened as she hurried through the parking lot. Inside the building wasn't much warmer than the cool March air outside but to Karai's nearly frozen limbs it felt as if she had just stepped into the hot air of summer. The little plaza was crowded with people getting coffee and lunch, there were children running in a circle chasing each other over by the McDonalds while they waited for whoever was with them, two elderly people who looked to be from India were off in a corner having a argument in another language which could faintly be heard throughout the plaza and a man was over at a coffee station trying to clean the hot liquid from his shirt.

Karai decided to head for the bathroom where she inspected her appearance in a mirror, and frowned. Her make-up was mostly gone and what remained was smudged around her eyes in uneven patches, and her hair was a static mess. After washing away the remnants of her make-up, as best as she could with only the use of water, she noticed another girl trying to fix her own static hair. The girl looked to be a few years younger than Karai was, as she could not have been older than fourteen. Her long brown hair just reached the top of her waist and she was using her wet hands to try and smooth down all the flyways. It didn't seem to be working but seeing no better option Karai fallowed the girl's example and wet her own hands. Once she thought she at least looked better she went and got her breakfast which, since she needed to make her money last, was only one donut and a small coffee which she was undoubtedly going to need.

After breakfast she had bought a single serving cup of cereal at the plaza's little convince store to save for lunch then set out again. The air outside was cold but nowhere near what it had been during the night, the snow on the ground was melting away and the wet slush had seeped through Karai's shoes hours ago, completely soaking her feet.

"Great, at this rate my feet will fall off before I get anywhere" she muttered to herself but kept walking, still with no idea of where she was going.

* * *

The rest of that day came and went, Karai stopped at another rest stop for dinner and then set up camp in the surrounding woods for the night. She tried looking up at the stars but found that she was too restless. A part of her wanted to turn back, just get up and start running back to the city. Maybe she'd find Leo, she always had a knack for finding him. Hunt him down on a patrol and explain that she had made a mistake, and that she believes him. Her eyes went wide when she thought of doing that, she had been thinking about what Leo said all day, no matter how hard she tried not to. But she kept saying that she doesn't believe him, even if she knew she was lying to herself.

Despite not having slept for two days already Karai found herself waking up multiple times throughout the night. She had always taken pride in being a light sleeper, Shredder didn't even need to teach her to awake at every little sound because it was so natural for her, but now she absolutely hated it. She just wanted to sleep but as if the noise of the cars on the road at the base of the hill didn't make it hard enough she was also waking up every time some sort of nocturnal animal made even a small noise. In the end she woke up for the last time roughly an hour before the sun rose and decided to start walking after getting a total of what seemed like a half hour of sleep.

* * *

She walked throughout most of the day and knew that it was well past noon when she finally decided that she wasn't going to find a rest stop any time soon and began walking along the side of an exit ramp. The sign for the ramp had been at least two miles back but Karai hadn't bothered to read it so she had no idea where exactly she was going.

The ramp let out onto the busy street of a town but it wasn't crowded, there were a few apartment buildings and shops with more apartments above them which, as Karai walked, faded out into houses that were few and far between, and in between where just woods and grassy fields.

"Probably should've stayed near the shops" Karai muttered, realizing that she wasn't going to find anything to eat out here and should've gone the other way upon walking off the highway.

She was about to turn around and go back when she noticed something in front of her. A good fifty feet or so ahead of her a small child with a backpack had been walking and Karai hadn't given it a second thought, she figured that the school day was ending and the child was walking home. But then, just as she decided to turn around, the child collapsed.

Without thinking Karai began to run, they were in front of the woods so nobody else was around to see what had happened. Upon reaching the kid Karai saw that it was a little girl, she lay face first on the pavement of the sidewalk and her backpack covered her entire back. She had platinum blond hair which was pulled up into a high ponytail and much to Karai's relief she was still breathing.

"Hey, hey kid, are you alright?" Karai whispered as she got to her knees and gently shook the little girl's shoulder.

"Hm?" The girl murmured as her eyes fluttered open and she pushed herself up into a sitting position.

Karai removed her hand from the girl's shoulder but stayed there on her knees as the girl sat up, only for a moment looking as though she were fully awake.

"Yeah, I'm..I'm fine" the girl slurred but she began to go down again.

Karai reached out and grabbed her arm as she started to fall backwards and pulled her back up

"Where do you live?" Karai asked knowing very clearly that there was no way this kid was ok and she defiantly wasn't making it home by herself.

"21… Orange street" the girl answered in a tired whispered voice before losing consciousness again and falling forward into Karai's arms.

Panic overtook Karai for a second, what was she supposed to do? She didn't have a phone so she couldn't call for help, she couldn't ask anyone for directions because who wouldn't question a teenager showing up at their door with an unconscious child and asking for directions? The only thing Karai could think to do was starting walking in the direction the girl had been going and hoping for the best so carefully she removed the girl's head from her lap and laid it gently on the ground, the girl didn't even stir. Trying not to let the fear get to her Karai was just as careful in removing the girl's backpack, which felt like it contained nothing more than a few pencils and maybe a folder, in order to make her easier to carry. Karai then slung the backpack over her own shoulder before picking up the girl bridal style, being thankful that she was light, and started walking.


	3. Chapter 3

Karai kept her eyes peeled for the _Orange Street _sign as she walked down the long stretch of road with a few side streets branching off here and there. The little girl stirred a few times and Karai stopped in her tracks every time she did, but the girl didn't wake. She wasn't very heavy, she was one of those kids who was made of just skin and bones, but after a while Karai was beginning to feel the burden of the little girl's weight on her arms. Thankfully it didn't take long for her to find the street sign she was searching for and she soon located house number twenty-one.

Karai wasn't sure if it was a small house or not, having grown up in Tokyo and then moving to New York City she didn't know anything aside from apartment buildings. The house looked like it was two stories, it was painted a deep brown color with a slanted black roof. The yard seemed fairly large but then again so did the yards of most of the other houses she had passed. Looking up at the house a new sense of fear washed over Karai, what were the girl's parents going to say? She could only hope that they would realize that she was helping their daughter, or give her a chance to explain herself. Briefly Karai wondered if maybe she should've just brought the girl to a hospital, of course she doesn't know where the nearest hospital is. Taking a deep breath to get over the fear Karai began to walk towards the front door, once again hoping for the best. She climbed the three stone steps and shifted the girl in her arms so she could knock on the door, after a minute or two a woman who had to be in either her late sixties or early seventies answered the door, a look of fear instantly washing over her face.

"Hi, I saw this girl walking on the sidewalk and then I saw her faint so I woke her up and she told me she lives here-" Karai began to explain, mostly in one breath, before she was cut off by the woman ushering her inside and telling her to lay the girl down of the couch.

The living room was right off the front door and the couch was pushed right up against the back wall. As Karai laid the girl down the woman rushed off to another room, presumably the kitchen based on the sounds of cabinet doors opening and closing rapidly.

"How long ago did she faint?" The woman asked as she hurried into the living room, clutching some kind of packet in her hand.

Karai watched as the woman set up a small foldout table in front of the couch and she moved out of the way, wondering if maybe she should just leave.

"I don't know, about ten minutes I think" Karai guessed and the woman placed the packet down on the table, Karai couldn't help the skeptical look on her face when she saw that it was Skittles.

"I knew I shouldn't have sent her to school" the woman muttered under her breath before looking up at Karai, who was trying to hide her curiosity.

"Her parents passed away just last week, I know these Skittles aren't good for her but they're the only thing she's willing to eat. The problem is she's naturally so small that her body doesn't have anything to feed off of" the woman explained, causing Karai to look down at the girl in a mixture of concern and sympathy.

Just then the little girl's eyes opened

"Grandma?" She asked the old woman who turned her attention to her and smiled.

"Everything's alright Haleigh, you're home now" she said sweetly.

Karai was thinking that now might be a good time to leave, and was about to, when the girl looked up at her.

"Thanks" she said with a small smile, revealing that she was missing her two front teeth, as she sat up.

"You're welcome" Karai said awkwardly and before she could try and leave the old woman turned her attention from her granddaughter to her.

"We're having spaghetti and meatballs tonight if you would like to stay" the woman offered

"Oh no that's fine" Karai declined as she took a step back, with every intention of leaving.

"Pleaaaseee" Haleigh whined from her position on the couch, while her grandmother continued to look at their guest with a hopeful look in her eye.

Karai had no idea what came over her, maybe it was her own hunger, but she looked past the older woman and spoke to Haleigh.

"I'll stay if you eat" she bargained with the little girl who nodded

"I'll try" she agreed.

* * *

Haleigh did try, although her grandmother may not have noticed, as she wasn't looking when halfway into dinner Haleigh finally put half of a meatball in her mouth. Aside from the sounds of forks hitting plates it was silent, and Karai was surprised that Haleigh's grandmother hadn't asked her anything about where she lived, in fact the only thing she had been asked was her name, and that was by Haleigh.

"Grandma can I be done?" Haleigh whined after awhile

"Eat a little more" her grandmother ordered, Haleigh threw her head back with a groan

"But I'm not hungry" she complained

"Have you ever tried slurping spaghetti through that gap in your teeth?" Karai asked the little girl who just gave her a bit of a confused look.

"No" she finally said

"Try it" Karai challenged the girl who looked down at her plate and picked up her fork. It took her long enough just to get a strand of spaghetti onto the fork but once she had it she raised the fork to her mouth and using her tongue, and hands, manipulated the string of sauce covered pasta through the opening in her closed teeth.

"It feels funny" Haleigh giggled then proceeded to take a few more bites in that manner before continuing to eat her supper like a normal person.

* * *

After dinner Karai was helping Mrs. Baker, Haleigh's grandmother, with the dishes. Much to the old woman's protest.

"Thank you for having me tonight" Karai said as she tried to grab a dirty plate to wash but Mrs. Baker snatched it away, still insisting that she didn't need any help.

"You're very welcome" Mrs. Baker said before she looked up at the clock, upon seeing that it was almost seven and that the sun had already gone down she turned off the sink.

"I'll finish these when I get back, your parents must be worried sick about you" she said as she hurried over to the counter and grabbed her purse and her car keys. "Come on I'll drive you home" she offered and internally, Karai panicked.

She had to think fast, she doesn't have a home but she couldn't tell Mrs. Baker that.

"That's ok, I don't live very far, I can walk" she lied as she made her way to the door but Mrs. Baker only frowned and made sure she was first to the door.

"Don't be ridiculous, it's freezing out and it's dark" she argued

"I'll be fine" Karai argued back but Mrs. Baker only shook her head

"No you won't, now are we going to stand here all night or are you going to admit that the reason you won't let me drive you home is because you don't have one?" The elderly woman questioned, causing Karai to freeze.

How did she know? How did she know exactly what it was that Karai was trying to hide?

As she stood there, trying to think of something to say, Mrs. Baker stood there staring her down, waiting for her response. But instead, it was Haleigh who broke the silence.

"You don't have a home?" The girl's heartbroken voice came from the doorway at the other end of the kitchen and Karai turned to see her standing there already close to tears.

"No" Karai admitted "But I can take care of myself, don't worry" she added to try and put the little girl's mind at ease.

But Haleigh just ran over and threw her arms around Karai's leg, looking up at her as Karai looked down in surprise.

"Don't go" Haleigh begged, Karai smiled sweetly at the little girl as she gently took her small hands and unlocked them from her leg.

"I have to" she tried to tell the girl but of course Mrs. Baker only crossed her arms

"And where exactly are you going?" She questioned, Karai gave her a ghost of a shrug

"I'll figure it out" she answered but the old woman shook her head.

"The only thing you'll figure out is how to freeze to death, you're staying here" Mrs. Baker said strictly and Karai opened her mouth to argue but she was cut off

"No buts, you're staying, case closed" and with that said Mrs. Baker simply returned to the sink as if nothing had happened.

Karai would've tried to argue again but an ecstatic Haleigh began pulling on her arm and leading her back into the living room.


	4. Chapter 4

"I understand if you didn't want to kick me out in front of Haleigh" Karai said to Mrs. Baker two hours later, just after Haleigh had gone to bed.

She sat there on the edge of the couch, Haleigh had given her some of her mother's old pajama's to wear to bed but she hadn't changed, she still thought that it would be best if she left. She wondered why she hadn't just gone while Mrs. Baker was putting Haleigh to bed, she had been alone downstairs for ten minutes which felt more like an eternity, she could've easily walked out of the house, so why didn't she?

Mrs. Baker gave her a small laugh as she walked into the living room and sat down in the chair in the corner of the room.

"I understand if you feel it's best for you to leave, you kids grow up listening to all these horror stories and by the time you're ten years old you don't trust anyone" she said and Karai looked down in guilt, it wasn't that she thought Mrs. Baker was going to hurt her, it was just that she didn't want to cause anyone any trouble.

"I guess not much has changed since I ran away from home" the old woman remarked and Karai looked up to see the thoughtful smile on her face.

"You?" Karai questioned as she looked at the woman quizzically, trying to think of what to say, Mrs. Baker only chuckled at the teens surprise.

"How do you think I figured out you were on your own hm?" She asked but Karai didn't answer "All kids who run away have this way about them, every time they find themselves in a house, they know they should leave but at the same time they don't know where they'd go, you can fool most people Karai but i've heard every excuse in the book" she continued to explain and Karai sighed in defeat as she looked down in her lap.

"So why did you run away?" Mrs. Baker questioned after a silent moment

Karai did not look up, she didn't really know how to answer that.

"It's ok if you don't want to tell me" Mrs. Baker said sweetly but Karai shook head, this woman was allowing her to stay here and stay off the street, she deserved to know what it was that brought her here.

"My mother died when I was baby, she was murdered. My father's been out for revenge ever since but the other day… I found that he's been lying to me and if it's true then… he, he killed my mother" Karai tired to explain but much to her surprise tears began to well up in her eyes as she spoke.

Quickly she wiped away the tears with he heel of her hand and took a shaky breath as she tried desperately to calm herself.

"I'm sorry" she apologized but Mrs. Baker only got up from her seat and joined Karai on the couch.

"Don't be sorry" she said with a soft smile as she placed a comforting hand on Karai's shoulder.

Karai still tried to calm down and her tears came out in hiccups as she struggled to hold them in. Secretly she wished she were alone, she wished that Mrs. Baker would just go upstairs and leave her here to cry by herself.

* * *

Karai slept on the couch that night, or tried to at least, she wondered how she could be so tired, after not sleeping for three days already, and still be unable to fall asleep. She had accepted that Mrs. Baker wasn't going to let her leave, and she was sort of glad for that. She knew she was capable of surviving on the streets but she was also afraid, afraid that her way of surviving would eventually dump her into some type of crime. She wasn't the type to sit on a street corner begging, and thanks to Shredder she knew the workings of a basic crime ring, she shuttered at the thought of becoming a part of that.

Looking around at the walls of the living room Karai wondered if this was what a lot of homes looked like, the walls were decorated with pictures such as one of a little baby sitting on a stool in a pretty little flower printed dress, Karai smiled realizing that it must be Haleigh. There was also a wedding picture, of a pretty blond woman and a man who was slightly taller than his wife, Karai figured that they must have been Haleigh's parents. Glancing around at the other pictures that stood in frames on the TV stand Karai found herself slowly closing her eyes and finally drifting off into a dreamless sleep.

* * *

At first Karai didn't know what woke her, a small noise she assumed, one which was so small she didn't even remember hearing it, but she knew she heard it. Looking around she saw Haleigh lurking into the doorway.

"Sorry" the little girl apologized in a small voice as she stepped fully into the doorway "I usually watch cartoons but I didn't want to wake you" she continued, a bashfully red blush overtaking her pale cheeks.

"I don't care, I need to get up anyway" Karai said as she sat up and the little girl slowly came walking in.

Haleigh went over to the chair where the remote was lying upside down and grabbed it before sitting down on the floor and switching on the TV.

"Do you want to sit on the couch?" Karai asked but Haleigh only shook her head, not taking her eyes off of the screen.

"Uh-uh" she said

Karai watched the little girl somewhat curiously. She thought it was kind of cute how her pajama pants matched her shirt, pink and decorated with the images of little tiaras and magic wands, she couldn't remember the last time she had bothered wearing pajamas which even remotely matched. Her blond hair was hanging messily down by her shoulders and looking at her Karai had a hard time believing that she was seven, six she would believe but Haleigh just seems to small to be seven. True Mrs. Baker had said that she has always been small but the point still stands. Just then Karai noticed that Haleigh's show had gone to commercial and the little girl had turned around, as if she were assessing Karai in the same way which Karai had been assessing her. Suddenly Haleigh's face fell to the ground and she fiddled with a loose thread on her shirt

"What happened to your mom and dad?" She asked and Karai was slightly caught off guard by the question, she hadn't expected Haleigh to want to hear about anybody's parents so soon after losing her own.

But staring patiently at the teen through concerned green eyes Haleigh waited for an answer, she wondered if Karai had run away from her parents and if so, why?

"My mom died when I was a baby, as for my dad, we were…separated" Karai answered, choosing her words extremely carefully when it came to her father, whom she was still unsure about the true identity of.

"How?" was all Haleigh had to say, now she was intrigued by Karai's background and took no notice when her cartoons had returned to the screen behind her.

Karai tried to think of an answer, or more likely a lie, her family wasn't exactly something which could be explained to second grader, not without key words such as 'war' and possibly 'kidnapping'.

"I'll tell you later" Karai finally answered, with absolutely no intentions of actually telling her later.

But Haleigh seemed to accept this as an answer for now and returned her attention back to the TV.

Roughly five minutes later the girls heard Mrs. Baker calling to them from the kitchen that breakfast was ready and not so much to the surprise of Karai, Haleigh groaned.

"I'm not hungry" she whined mostly under her breath but Karai still heard it.

"Haleigh you need to eat" she told her sternly, Haleigh turned around again but did not get up.

"I know. I want to eat, I really do, but every time I look at food all of a sudden I don't feel hungry" she admitted, Haleigh knew what she was doing to herself was bad, she knew that people need to eat in order to survive. But she couldn't help it, she didn't know why she was feeling like this, just that she did.

Looking at Haleigh sympathetically Karai stood up only to sit back down on the floor in front of the little girl. Gently the Kunoichi placed a hand on her shoulder

"I know it hurts to lose your parents, but you still have your grandma" she said trying to comfort the girl, however she wasn't expecting what happened next.

Leaning her head against Karai's chest Haleigh wrapped her arms around the older girl's waist. Karai, at first, was taken back by this and could only sit there frozen. She could count on the fingers of one hand how many times she had been hugged throughout her life.

"I have you too" Haleigh murmured, now Karai really didn't know what to do.

She had only spent one night here, how could Haleigh be so sure that she wasn't going to leave today? How could she even be sure that having her around was a good thing?

Finally, getting over her initial shock, Karai gently detached Haleigh from herself and gave a weak yet reassuring smile and Haleigh smiled back before getting up and hurrying off into the kitchen. Karai stood up slowly and wondered to herself, could she find a family in these people?


	5. Chapter 5

The next few days went by somewhat awkwardly, between Karai trying to accept the fact that she wasn't leaving this house and the Baker's still adjusting to the loss of Haleigh's parents, never mind the presence of Karai, everyone was still trying to work their way into a new routine. However things were starting to look up for the little family, after another day or two eating was no longer something which Haleigh had to force herself to do and Mrs. Baker even commented that she seemed happier. Mrs. Baker seemed happier too, and Karai quickly learned that had she tried to leave on her first night in the house the old woman just might have gotten in the car, hunted her down, and dragged her back. There was no messing around with her, which meant that daily chores were often given out with heavy amounts of sarcasm, either for not helping enough or for helping too much, typically it was helping to much.

Whenever Karai wasn't arguing with Mrs. Baker, mostly trying to convince the woman that she was just fine sleeping on the couch and that they didn't need to set up the spare bed, stored away in the attic, in Haleigh's room, she was often playing with Haleigh.

"Welcome to my room!" Haleigh had exclaimed proudly the first time she brought Karai up to her bedroom.

The room was about average size for a bedroom, although the toys and dirty laundry littering the floor made it look smaller. The floor was hard wood and Haleigh's twin sized bed was up against the wall in the top right corner, hanging from a hook on the ceiling above it was a pink princess canopy thinner than a sheet. Across from the bed was dollhouse, which intrigued Karai because none of the dolls inside seemed to have come from the same set. The house was made of basic plastic and was big enough that it was about half Haleigh's height. One doll with the appearance of a young man looked as though he had come with the house. There were five dolls in total; the man, a child version of a Barbie doll, the smallest from a set of nesting dolls which was no bigger than Karai's thumb, a cowboy which probably came from a set of Lincoln Logs, and an eraser shaped like a dog.

"That's Joe" Haleigh said, pointing to the man "he lives here with his daughters Kate and Iris, I know Kate's really the same height as him, even though she's only three, but I just pretend she's smaller" Haleigh continued to explain as she picked up the child Barbie and nesting doll. "This is Kenny, Joe's brother, and his dog Scott, they live here too" Haleigh said, grabbing the cowboy and the dog.

"What happened to Joe's wife?" Karai asked, noticing how Haleigh's dolls had no mother.

Haleigh only shrugged as she put the dolls back in their house "she's on a trip, when I get a doll that can be Joe's wife will be when she comes back" she answered.

Briefly Karai wondered what Haleigh meant by "a doll that can be Joe's wife", but seeing as Haleigh had already gotten up and moved halfway across the room she let the matter go.

Haleigh continued to show Karai her toys and contrary to what Mrs. Baker believed, Karai actually did have some interest in it. Haleigh's imagination is strange no doubt, but very intriguing. The little girl had a seemingly endless amount of toys but each one had a name, each one had a story and in one way or another each one had a family. When asked Haleigh said she wasn't sure how many toys she had exactly, but asking her turned out to be a mistake because although she was unsure of the number she was sure of each individual name and then spent the good portion of that Saturday afternoon figuring out the number, in the end she came up with one-hundred and five.

* * *

It was a little over a month after Karai had first come to the Baker's home when she woke up in the middle of the night, which normally wouldn't be odd but tonight it wasn't a nightmare which had woken her. She was used to not sleeping the whole night, typically she awoke in a cold sweat from a bad dream three or four times a week. But tonight was different. Whatever had woken her, she wasn't afraid of it, it was like when she woke up to Haleigh coming in the living room every morning, like she just sensed the presence of something. Looking around she realized that that was exactly the case, Haleigh was standing halfway in the doorway, clutching one of her dolls to her chest.

"Where's Grandma?" She asked, her voice cracking as if she had been crying

Quickly, Karai glanced at the clock which read 10:37, and she tried to think how late Mrs. Baker had said she'd be out at her poker game.

"She went to play poker with her friends" she answered, secretly Karai wondered how it was that a group of senior citizens could start a game of poker at nine o'clock at night and go until midnight, based on what she had been told, without anybody being concerned.

But Karai also heard the crack in Haleigh's voice and even from across the dark room she could see that the little girl's eyes were red and puffy from tears.

"Are you ok?" She asked but Haleigh merely shook her head with a barely audible _no._

Karai sat up on the couch "what's wrong?" she questioned as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes.

Haleigh simply stood there, looking at her feet, as tears began to spill from her eyes once again.

"I miss mommy… and daddy" she choked out through her sobs.

Karai looked at the younger girl standing across the room from her in sympathy, she knew that feeling all too well. Standing up, before she could talk herself out of this, Karai walked over and knelt in front of Haleigh, this time she was the one pulling the little girl into a hug. Haleigh's reaction was nothing like Karai's a month before, instead of shock Haleigh threw her arms around the teenager's neck and gripped the back of her shirt tightly. She sobbed into her shoulder as hard, unrelenting sobs racked her tiny framed. Karai held tight to the little girl, silently wondering to herself how it was possible for so much sadness to be contained in such a little body, but she knew.

As child she hadn't been unlike Haleigh, she was a little girl who had lost her parents. Of course at the time she thought Shredder was her father but she still believed to have lost him with her mother, he was always so cold. He never hugged her, comforted her, told her that things were going to be ok. She thought that maybe he was a good man before, back in a time which she could not remember, back in a time when her mother was alive. When her mother died Shredder snapped, that much she still believed to be true. So when she was young her imagination was her best friend, though she never expressed any of her made up world through toys like Haleigh does and by the time she was only nine she learned not to show it at all. So she had cried alone so many nights, and now she refused to let Haleigh do the same.

Moving her arms underneath Haleigh Karai carefully stood up, allowing the sobbing girl to sit on her arms with her face still buried against her shoulder as she was carried over to the couch where Karai sat down. They sat there for a while, Haleigh crying over the loss of her parents while Karai smoothed her messy and somewhat knotted blond hair, whispering that she knew the feeling. Finally Haleigh's sobs slowed to nothing more than sniffles, setting a thick sort of quiet over the dark living room. Haleigh turned her head, keeping it pressed against Karai's shoulder, and found herself staring absentmindedly at the blank screen of the television. For the first time since they sat down she registered Karai's hands, gently brushing through her hair. She sat there, her thoughts drifting from her deceased parents to her new found 'sister', and how much she wanted to know about her.

"It's later" Haleigh finally murmured

"Hm?" Karai's voice came in a questioning tone, though she used no words, it was obvious that she didn't know what the girl in her arms was talking about.

Adjusting herself so she could look up at Karai Haleigh explained herself

"You said that you would tell me about how you and your dad were separated later" she reminded her.

Karai sighed as she tried to think of something, anything, that she could say.

"Right" Karai exhaled, wishing Haleigh could've forgotten about their conversation weeks ago. "Well after my mom died my dad disappeared so I was raised by a man named Oroku Saki" Karai began, trying to stick as close to the truth as she could without letting Haleigh know about the mutagen or either ninja clan or really anything that would shatter the little girl's beliefs that the world is a good place.

"Saki didn't tell me what happened to my dad, he assumed that he was dead so there was no point in telling me. But a little over a year ago, not long after I moved to New York, I met a boy named Leo" Karai continued to explain, try as she might she could not leave Leo out of this tale.

"Did you like him?" Haleigh questioned in a knowing voice, Karai chuckled, knowing what she was thinking.

"Not in the way you're thinking, but he was my friend" she answered, not really sure if she were lying about her feelings towards Leo or not.

"Leo said that him and his brothers were adopted when they were babies, just after their dad moved to New York. They don't have a mom and he never told me this but Leo's dad used to be married and had a daughter, before there was an accident and he thought that they both died" she continued to explain

"That's sad" Haleigh said, lying her head back against Karai's shoulder

"A little, but the baby didn't die" Karai revealed, really this was the first time she was openly admitting that she believed Leo, and to her surprise, it felt good.

"What do you mean?" Haleigh asked, looking back up at her as she tried to understand, truthfully she did understand but she wanted to hear it from Karai.

"Well it took awhile but somehow Leo figured out that I was the baby, and he told me" Karai admitted and despite that she already had it figured out Haleigh gasped.

"So Leo's your brother?" She asked, an excited smile lighting up her face.

Karai smiled back at the little girl "I guess so" she said, smoothing out some more of Haleigh's hair. She hadn't thought of that before, she had been so scared and confused when she left and these past few weeks that she hadn't even made the connection that the turtles, Splinter's children, would be her adoptive brothers if what they said was true.

"So what happened?" Haleigh asked, unable to contain her excitement of hearing the rest of the story, unable to see that by Karai being here the story did not have the happy ending she was waiting for.

"I got mad" Karai admitted solemnly, Haleigh's face fell to a frown. "I thought it was a joke and that Leo was lying to me. He had never told me about his dad's wife and daughter before, so I got mad. I said some things that I shouldn't have and I went home and told Saki, who told me that Leo was telling the truth" by now she was full on lying but bits and pieces of that were true. Leo never had spoken of Splinter's old life, she had thought he was lying, and she defiantly had said and done some things which she now deeply regrets. "I left Saki's house but after what I said I couldn't face Leo, so I ran away and ended up here" Karai now felt she may be close to tears herself and Haleigh just looked up at her with sad eyes.

"Why don't you go back?" She finally asked but Karai only sighed

"He wouldn't forgive me" she answered sadly

"He might, he's your friend and your brother." Haleigh continued, she didn't want to see Karai go, she would really miss having her around, but her family probably missed her.

"I wish it were that simple Haleigh" Karai said with a sigh, oh how she wished it were that simple.

"Why isn't it?" Haleigh asked innocently and Karai tried to think of something to say, but she couldn't.

It was then that Karai realized that she really did believe Leo and even if Shredder wasn't undoubtedly hunting her he is hunting her father, and she can't let him win. So she decided that she would leave in the morning, she would go back to New York.

But in the morning Mrs. Baker flipped on the news and they saw the coverage of the invasion.


	6. Chapter 6

"It's snowing! It's snowing! It's snowing!" Haleigh shouted as she ran throughout the house early that Sunday morning.

From where she slept on the couch Karai was quite aware of the little girl bouncing off the walls of the downstairs but she chose to ignore her for the most part, the snow wasn't supposed to last or accumulate to anything, considering it was the first week of April. However when Haleigh realized that she was the only one excited about the falling snow she raced over to the couch and pounced on top of the teenager who was clearly trying to get a little more sleep before setting out for home.

"Dah!" Karai exclaimed in surprise when she saw the little girl about to jump her, not giving her enough time to roll over before landing atop her stomach, giggling and bouncing up and down.

"It's snowing!" She exclaimed, completely unaware that Karai had literally felt all the air leaving her body a second ago.

"I noticed, now get off" Karai said playfully as she gently shoved Haleigh off her before sitting up, grateful Haleigh was so small for her age.

Looking out the window Karai tried to figure out how long the snow would go on for, she knew it wouldn't be long but she also didn't want to start walking back to the city in the snow if she could avoid it. Of course she also figured Mrs. Baker would insist on driving her and not take no for an answer.

"Hey if it's snowing then are you gonna stay?" Haleigh asked innocently, as if she were capable of reading Karai's thoughts.

Karai smiled at Haleigh as she stood and grabbed her clothes from the foot of the couch

"A couple hours at best" she answered before heading for the downstairs bathroom, Haleigh following at her heels like a sad puppy.

"But I'm gonna miss you if you go!" She whined

"It was your idea" Karai laughed, Haleigh groaned but before she could say anything else Karai entered the bathroom and closed the door, making sure to lock it after having learned the hard way that if Haleigh truly wanted to bother her a closed but unlocked bathroom door meant nothing.

The bathroom was small, very small, in fact wasn't originally meant to be a bathroom. It was a closet which Haleigh's father had cleaned out and installed a toilet and sink inside of. The bathroom upstairs was where the tub was but Karai hated going up there to change in the morning, afraid that her feet on the creaking floorboards of the upstairs would be enough to wake Mrs. Baker. So standing between the toilet and the sink Karai undressed and redressed into the clothes she had worn the day she came here, a coin falling from the pocket of her jacket. Karai smirked as she picked up the stray coin, the only remaining content of her pockets. She remembered when she had shamefully admitted to Mrs. Baker that her coat pocket contained a small sword, swearing it was only for self-defense. The old woman had just laughed and told her she was glad to hear that she had enough sense to grab a weapon before running away from home.

Rolling her eyes at the memory Karai unlocked the door and exited the bathroom, not at all surprised to find Haleigh still outside the door.

"Why are you wearing your coat?" Haleigh whined "I thought you said you would stay till the snow stopped?" She continued to complain as she fallowed Karai back to the living room.

"Relax, I just have it on cause it's cold" Karai assured her little friend

"So you're not leaving yet?" Haleigh asked hopefully, she did understand why Karai has to leave but that didn't mean she wanted to see her go.

Before Karai could answer, however, she was interrupted by a somewhat raspy voice coming from the stairs.

"Is she trying to run away again?" Mrs. Baker called and both Karai and Haleigh rolled their eyes

"She sounds mad" Haleigh giggled and Karai had to agree.

Despite it only being half past eight in the morning, Mrs. Baker was already dressed for the day and she marched straight into the living room, pointing an accusing finger at Karai.

"I've told you I do not want you back on the streets-" she began ranting but Karai cut her off.

"I'm not running away" she butted in which stopped Mrs. Baker mid-sentence, "I've decided that I need to go and find my father, I owe him an apology" she explained but Mrs. Baker only eyed her curiously.

"Can you come help me with something, in the kitchen?" The old woman finally asked.

Unsure of where this was going Karai nodded and followed Mrs. Baker into the kitchen where Haleigh wouldn't hear them.

"Are you serious?" Mrs. Baker asked, Karai looked at her dumbfounded

"Yeah I am" she answered honestly

"Karai I understand he's your father but if what you told me about your mother is true then you were right to run away, you can't go back to him" Mrs. Baker warned sternly but Karai almost laughed upon realizing that she hadn't explained correctly on her first night.

"No you're misunderstanding, I guess I didn't explain it clearly. When I said my father lied to me he lied about more than killing my mother, he lied about who he was" she clarified and now it was Mrs. Baker's turn to look dumbfounded. "The man I was raised by, the man who killed my mother, he isn't my father. He said he was but he lied, he kidnapped me from my actual father." Karai explained and it was clear that Mrs. Baker was at a loss for words.

"Karai" Haleigh's voice came nervously calling from the living room

"What?" Karai called back, wondering why Haleigh sounded like she was afraid of something.

Just then the little girl appeared down at the end of the hallway.

"When you said you moved to New York, did you mean the city?" She questioned and Karai furrowed her brow.

"Yes" she answered slowly, wondering why Haleigh looked so afraid.

"I, I turned on the TV, and, and, and…" the little girl began to stutter as tears began forming in her eyes.

Karai couldn't for the life of her guess what on earth it could be that suddenly had Haleigh so upset, never mind what it had to do with New York. But she bolted down the short hallway and back into the living room where the TV was now playing the local news, and what it was reporting horrified Karai.

"I just wanted to know how long the snow would last" Haleigh muttered quietly but Karai couldn't hear her, she couldn't even hear the reporter on the television. All she could do was watch the images of the Kraang mutating the people of New York City.

It was chaos, absolute chaos. People were running everywhere in the streets as they tried desperately to get away from the aliens. Karai clasped a hand over her mouth, it was all she could do. Mrs. Baker gasped but said nothing and after what felt like an eternity of silence Haleigh finally spoke up.

"Do you see your family?" She asked innocently but Karai shook her head, knowing that her chances of catching a glimpse of her family on the news were slim to none.

"No" she admitted before taking the remote from the TV stand and handing it to Haleigh

"Here put your cartoons on" she said and Haleigh looked at her in bewilderment, didn't she want to try and spot her loved ones?

"But-" Haleigh began before being cut off by Karai

"Please"

* * *

Karai was out in the yard that night, sitting in a tree, looking up at the stars. Sitting out here she had determined one thing, she does not have the patients for star gazing. She had always heard about how people could look up at the stars and just clear their heads, clearly she is not one of those people. All she had been able to think about since this morning was New York, and coming out here had only made it worse. It just isn't fair, she left weeks ago and decided too late to go back. She wan't there, and now she may never get to apologize for all she's done.

"Haleigh tells me you have brothers back in New York?" A voice asked and Karai looked down to see Mrs. Baker standing at the base of the tree.

With a sigh Karai climbed down from the tree and landed on the ground in front of the older woman.

"Had brothers, the Kraang probably got to them" she said, she knew that the turtles had beat the Kraang in battle before but this was a full scale invasion, they couldn't have won.

Mrs. Baker placed a hand on her shoulder and offered her a reassuring smile before pulling the teen into a hug.

"People have strange ways of surprising us. You can't abandon the hope for your family" she whispered into Karai's ear but it didn't help, Karai knew that everything and everyone she left behind in New York was now either mutated or dead except maybe for Shredder, her father and her brothers were gone.

* * *

But unknown to Karai a van pulled into a long abandoned driveway just twenty minutes away from the Baker's house the next morning and out of it stepped three mutant turtle brothers, two of them carrying the unconscious fourth, and two humans. After the unconscious turtle was placed in a bathtub filled with water and a few hours had passed the red headed human girl found the orange banded turtle staring vacantly out a window.

"Leo will be ok Mikey" she said to him

"It's not him I'm worried about" the youngest turtle replied and his friend furrowed her brow at him in response.

"Master Splinter-"

"Not him either" Mikey interrupted before she could continue

"Then who?" April asked and Mikey sighed heavily

"Leo had been keeping his eyes out for Karai recently, we haven't seen her since Shredder captured Splinter the night of the earthquakes. I know she's our enemy and all but she's also our sister, do you think she got out ok?" He questioned, finally turning to face April.

Truthfully she didn't exactly know what to tell Mikey, she did think that Karai was still live and human but she also believed that she was still in the city, working alongside the very creatures who had driven the teenagers out and sent Leo into his comatose state.

"I'm sure she's fine" she told Mikey gently.


	7. Chapter 7

When Karai awoke that morning it was to the usual sight of Haleigh coming into the room to watch some of her cartoons before school but this time the little girl carried something with her, a small silver package with blue writing on it. Before she grabbed the remote Haleigh, with a completely straight face, handed the package over to Karai who sat up and examined it, only to discover that it was a yet to be opened Pop Tart.

"You need to eat" the little girl said sternly when Karai looked curiously at her.

Karai gave a laugh as she allowed a small smile upon her face "I didn't stop" she reminded Haleigh who said nothing in return as she took hold of the remote and flicked on her show.

For a moment Karai continued to smile at the little girl who was now mesmerized by the television before unwrapping and proceeding to eat the Pop Tart which truthfully she thought was disgusting. She hated the taste of the sticky, strawberry flavored, jelly contained inside of the frosted gram cracker like casing which wasn't much better than it's contents. But it made Haleigh happy, she didn't want to see Karai do to herself what she had done following the deaths of her parents.

* * *

Within the next few weeks, since Karai realized that even if she were to ever leave Northampton she was most likely never going back to New York, she ended up working at a local ice cream place. It was a part time job which was really all she needed, she tried paying Mrs. Baker some kind of rent but just as she had suspected the old woman wouldn't hear of it and nearly bit her head off when she caught Karai trying to place the money in her purse without being noticed. Karai had to admit that in a way old Mrs. Baker was more intimidating than the Shredder, with Shredder she had still tested her limits and disobeyed from time to time. With Mrs. Baker she didn't dare do anything she wasn't supposed to, which was strange considering Shredder's consequences were ten times worse than anything Mrs. Baker could come up with. So for the most part Karai saved her money, using some to buy herself some new clothes considering she only had the one set and was getting pretty tired of doing her laundry every night. She also bought a backpack, just a plain black backpack, where she could keep her clothes.

She also met Haleigh's Uncle Ken and Auntie Sharon, who lived in town. She wasn't deaf and had heard the conversation between Ken and Mrs. Baker the night they came over for dinner and she was introduced to them, he had said she was insane for allowing "some random kid off the streets" into her home. That hadn't hurt Karai, she had expected that much, she still thought Mrs. Baker was slightly unhinged when it came to her decision to let her stay. But Ken's next words practically stopped Karai's heart.

"What would Amanda and Oliver say about this? About you just bringing a complete stranger not only into the house but around Haleigh?" He demanded furiously.

Karai was in the dining room, with Haleigh and Sharon, where the argument in the kitchen could be easily heard, whether Ken knew it or not. At first the three had tried ignoring it, then at the "kid off the street" comment Sharon had looked as though she were about to apologize but Karai gave a look that said it was ok. But then they plainly heard what Ken said about Amanda and Oliver, Haleigh's parents, and Sharon shot up and went into the other room. The shouting voice of Ken was suddenly hushed by his wife before it was heard again a second later.

"Good! I'm glad she can hear me!" He exclaimed before he was silenced again.

With the voices in the kitchen now nothing but hard to decipher whispers, Haleigh looked up from her bowl of ice cream.

"Don't worry, you're fun and you're nice. Mommy and daddy would've loved you" she assured Karai who chuckled out genuine smile, somehow Haleigh always knew how to make her smile.

* * *

"Well that was a disaster" Karai muttered that night as she helped Mrs. Baker clean up after Ken and Sharon had gone home and Haleigh was in bed.

"Oh don't pay attention to Kenny, he's always been hardheaded" Mrs. Baker said but when she saw that Karai didn't even pretend to laugh she sighed, knowing how much the words of Oliver's brother had hurt.

"Kenny's just afraid. His and Oliver's parents passed away when he was just a little older than you. After losing Oliver Haleigh's the only blood that he has left, he's just being protective of her. But give him time, he'll come around" she assured, coming to stand over Karai's shoulder to see that she was violently scrubbing the dry jelly off one of Haleigh's princess plates. She couldn't really tell if Karai was fighting off a smile or tears but one which was clear was that she partially agreed with Ken, and that is what got to Mrs. Baker most of all.

Gently she placed a hand on Karai's shoulder and pulled her away from the sink.

"Why don't you go upstairs and check on Haleigh, lord knows she's probably awake" she instructed and with a small but maybe forced smile Karai nodded and walked away.

Once upstairs Karai found that Haleigh was indeed awake and was kneeling in front of her dollhouse.

"I'm just putting them to bed, I promise" she said apologetically when she spotted her teenage friend standing in the doorway, as if she knew that Karai was about to remind her that her grandmother had already tucked her in once.

"I'm going to brush my teeth" Karai said with just the smallest hint of a laugh, honestly it had just brightened her mood to know that Haleigh's biggest worry was what someone was going to say when she got caught having snuck out of bed.

Once she had brushed her teeth Karai left the bathroom and was planning on heading back downstairs to get changed into her pajamas and go to sleep but instead as she found Haleigh standing in her bedroom doorway.

"You ok?" She asked the little girl somewhat skeptically as she approached her

"I know Grandma already did but could you tuck me in?" Haleigh asked as she looked up to Karai with her big blue eyes.

"Sure" Karai said and a grin instantly broke out on Haleigh's face as she raced to her bed, much faster than Karai who had to watch where she stepped as so not to step on one of Haleigh's many toys which littered the floor.

Haleigh scrambled up onto her bed and lay down on the mattress, waiting patiently for her blankets to be spread out over her. Karai, a little unsure of what she was doing exactly, grabbed the edges of the light pink sheet bunched up at the end of the bed and pulled it up over Haleigh. Once she finished with that she went for the white blanket that came next and then hesitated with the comforter.

"Is it too hot at night for the comforter?" She asked Haleigh, she knew the living room wasn't to hot, one of the windows was jammed and refused to shut all the way, letting in the cold night air and forcing Karai to take cover under three light blankets and a heavy sweatshirt. But spring was nearing and she didn't know how cold Haleigh's room got during the night.

"Uh-uh" Haleigh answered with a smile and a head shake, so Karai pulled the flower printed comforter up over the little girl, figuring that if it did get too hot she could always kick it off in the middle of the night.

Once she was done Karai looked over the bed one last time, as if to make sure she had tucked Haleigh in correctly.

"Goodnight" she said but she had only turned around when Haleigh reached out and grabbed her wrist, pulling her back.

"What?" Karai asked but Haleigh only pulled gently on her arm in order to pull Karai down to her level.

When Karai followed the little girl's unspoken request and crouched down beside the bed she had been expecting Haleigh to lean over and whisper some stupid little joke into her ear, but instead Haleigh rose up just high enough to reach Karai's face and planted a kiss on her cheek.

"Goodnight" Haleigh repeated as she lay back down on her bed, giggles escaping her control because she could see the look of complete surprise on Karai's face.

Blinking herself out of the shock Karai shook her head and smiled

"Night Haleigh" she said as she affectionately ruffled the girl's hair and left the room.


	8. Chapter 8

"Are you sure you know how to drive?" Haleigh questioned Karai from the backseat of the car. Her grandmother was busy doing some spring cleaning and so she had asked Karai to drive Haleigh to her friend Elaine's birthday party.

"Yes I know how to drive however I don't know where it is that I'm going" Karai responded, Haleigh starting to get on her nerves. She was driving just fine but according to Haleigh they had already taken three wrong turns.

"I told you the address" Haleigh defended

"Haleigh I don't know where it is, I've only been as far as the ice cream shop" Karai argued and so she spent the next couple of minutes listening to Haleigh listing off places in town that she did know (which is extremely limited) and after a while they finally found the house.

"This is the place right?" Karai asked once she had parked the car. It looked like the right place, the mailbox had three different balloons tied to it and there were a lot of little kids running around in the backyard, but Haleigh hadn't moved.

"Can you come in with me?" She asked in a small voice

Karai rolled her eyes, she really didn't want to considering the last time she met somebody, aside from her boss at the ice cream place, it had been Haleigh's uncle and that ended terribly. But having been told that Haleigh has a tendency to be shy, she decided to just suck it up and hope that Elaine's mom wouldn't immediately hate her as much as Haleigh's uncle did.

"Sure" she agreed as she got out of the car, Haleigh grabbed the present and hurried out of the backseat.

Karai couldn't help but smile to herself at how Haleigh struggled to get a good grip on the bulky present she insisted that she wanted to carry herself. She could just barely hold it and kept adjusting her grip on it, trying to to find a comfortable way of carrying the box. It was a minute after Karai had knocked on the door, since clearly Haleigh didn't have the hands to do it, that a girl no older than seventeen answered.

"Hey! Here let me help you with that" The girl said in a friendly voice as she gently took the present from Haleigh "party's out in the yard" she continued and moved aside so that Haleigh could get past her, but the little girl only looked up at Karai.

"Go" Karai encouraged and so shyly Haleigh made her way into the house and headed for the backdoor.

"Hey um I know this might sound like I don't know what I'm doing but what's her name? I've seriously never met half of my sister's friends before today" the teenager in the doorway asked before Karai could leave.

"Haleigh" Karai said and the girl nodded

"Thanks, uh I know this is a kids party but if you want to hang out me, my brother and some of our older cousins are around" the girl invited, Karai had noticed a few adults standing in the backyard and figured that some of the parents had probably stayed but she shook her head.

"Sorry, I've got work in an hour" Karai answered which was true, the girl nodded understandingly

"Alright well see ya around" the girl said before Karai left.

* * *

"I'm telling you Paton, I saw the van" a seventeen year old boy argued with his twin sister as soon as she shut the door.

"Jarrod" Paton whined as she put down the present for her younger sister which she had taken from Haleigh.

"I'm serious!" Jarrod defended as his sister came and leaned forward on the the side of the counter opposite him.

"Jarrod I want to believe you, but the O'Neil's disappeared without a trace almost ten years ago, face it they're gone." Paton tried to convince her brother but he wouldn't budge.

"Dude I would know that hippie van anywhere, it was at the house last week when I drove by, I swear it. Anyway there was never any proof that they died, why are you so convinced they did?" The boy questioned and Paton sighed, about to tell him, when two of the young kids ran by giggling and chasing each other with Nerf guns.

"We'll talk about this later" she promised, not wanting to revisit such bad memories during her little sister's birthday.

* * *

"So how was the party?" Mrs. Baker asked Haleigh that night during dinner.

"Good" Haleigh responded with her mouth full, she finished chewing her pizza before she continued. She spoke about what Elaine had gotten for presents, how some annoying little boy named Lucas had 'accidentally' pushed her down (which neither Mrs. Baker or Karai was happy to hear about), and about how all the little kids had ganged up on Elaine's older siblings.

"Were you always Karai?" Haleigh randomly asked after awhile, Karai looked at her in total confusion.

"Excuse me?" She finally responded

"Your name. You said you weren't raised by your dad and that your mom died when you were a baby. Was your name always Karai? Or did Oroku Saki change it?" Haleigh questioned, initially Karai was impressed that she managed to pronounce Shredder's name but she soon turned her thought to the question.

"He changed it" she admitted, momentarily glancing down at her plate.

Mrs. Baker, knowing more than Haleigh did about Karai's background, was about to shush her granddaughter when Karai spoke back up.

"My parents named me Miwa, at least that's what Leo told me" she admitted

"That's a funny name" Haleigh remarked, completely unaware of the gravity this all had on Karai.

"Haleigh!" Mrs. Baker scolded but she was soon taken by surprise when Karai giggled at the comment.

"It only sounds funny cause it's not English, it's Japanese, like Karai" she explained

"Why are both your names Japanese?" Haleigh questioned, truthfully she had never put much thought into where exactly Karai had come from, though she did guess that it was somewhere in Asia.

"Because I'm from Japan" Karai stated simply

"So what's it in English?" Haleigh asked as she bit off another piece of her pizza.

Karai thought about that for a moment, she knew that there wasn't an English translation for Karai, she had looked it up when Shredder dropped the bomb on her that they were moving to New York. She had also looked up the meaning which which turned out to be things such as 'adventurous' and 'harsh', the second one she figured was probably the reason Shredder picked that name. But she had no idea what Miwa was in English.

"Which name?" She finally asked but Haleigh shrugged "Well Karai means adventurous but I don't know about Miwa" she admitted.

* * *

Karai could not fall asleep that night. The weather outside was getting warmer so it wasn't the cold. She had already gotten used to the sounds made by the walls when it was windy, which tonight it wasn't, so that wasn't the problem. The problem was that after dinner Haleigh had insisted that they look up the meaning and/or English translation of Miwa, and it turned out to be Harmony. So now Karai couldn't bring herself to fall asleep, she knew it no longer mattered that she had once used Harmony as an alias but it was still keeping her up. Out of all names, out of all the names she could've chosen, she had to pick Harmony. She remembered wanting something which sounded innocent, something sweet and nice. Harmony had been the first name which came to her mind, why? Was there something subconscious in the back of her mind that knew the truth? Did she somewhere, buried way in the back of her subconscious, remember? She knew that couldn't be, even if she did remember being Miwa she never could've known the meaning of the name, it was just a coincidence.

"Just a coincidence" Karai whispered to herself, as though saying it aloud could make her truly believe it.

It didn't work, however, saying it out loud did momentarily break the everlasting and somewhat unsettling silence of the dark living room. Knowing though that she had to whisper to avoid being heard gave Karai some comfort, because she knew that there are people upstairs, she knew that her past no longer matters, all that matters is that now things are better and she has a home.

* * *

Meanwhile, back in New York, Rahzar made his way into Shredder's throne room and knelt before his master.

"We've searched the entire city master, but there is no sign of the turtles… or Karai" he reported, bitterly adding the information, or lack thereof, about the Shredder's still missing daughter.

Shredder narrowed his eyes upon hearing this news, and rose from his throne. "The turtles could not have survived this long if they remained in the city, but they will return and when they do Karai will be with them" Shredder stated confidently. He was sure that after Karai ran away she joined the turtles. After Splinter escaped his clutches the first time he knew it was only a matter of time before he told the turtles of Karai's true identity, and then they convinced Karai.

But she is his daughter, and he raised her with a thirst for vengeance. When they return Karai will no doubt be coming after him, and when she does he will make sure that he gets his revenge.

"Place foot bots at the city's wall with the Kraang, when the turtles and Karai return, they are mine" Shredder ordered.


	9. Chapter 9

"Calm down, I've got you" Karai assured Haleigh.

It was the first real spring day of the year and after having been cooped up in the house all winter Haleigh wanted to go outside and ride her bike. However her dad never got around to taking the training wheels off her bike the previous year so now Karai had done it. She was running down the empty street, one hand on the back of Haleigh's seat and the other on the handle bar, trying to get the little girl used to balancing her bike with only two wheels. Haleigh was still nervous and unsure of whether or not she could figure out how to ride the bike, she had already fallen off twice.

Mrs. Baker watched the girls from a lawn chair at the edge of the yard and smiled to herself. By now most of the family's friends had met Karai, some of them loved her and some of them were too judgmental about the situation to give her a chance. But Mrs. Baker didn't care, she knew that letting Karai stay was the right thing to do. She had been in her shoes once, well maybe not exactly, but she couldn't have survived many more years in her childhood home and in fact was younger than Karai when she ran away. That was one thing that most people didn't seem to realize about runaways, they are left with no other choice. They're not the evil in the world, they aren't the ones who are criminals, in fact they're usually running to get away from all that. They're the ones with the courage to leave the crime, to leave the fear, to leave the abuse. They trade in a painful roof over their heads for a life without a home, but with the guarantee that if they die, it won't be at the hands of someone close to them. Of course not all children who run away are like that, Mrs. Baker had never feared that her mother would kill her and in truth she regretted running away at fourteen, but the fact still remains that she did and she ended up raising herself on the streets. Despite being seventeen Karai was still a child in the old woman's eyes, and there was no way she was letting another lost teenager suffer for doing what she had to do.

* * *

A few days later on Saturday night there was a concert downtown, just some local band. But it was a charity thing so a lot of people went. It wasn't bad actually, a lot of the local places had tables set up where they were selling food, Karai got lucky and her boss didn't make her work the event. So she was walking around the town green with Haleigh, Mrs. Baker had met up with Ken and Sharon and well that had been enough to make Karai want to get out of there. So they walked around until Haleigh spotted her friend Elaine in the crowd and hurried over to wrap the girl in a tight hug. Karai found it cute how the little girls acted as though it had been years since they last saw each other, even though they just saw each other at school yesterday. At first she thought Elaine had wandered off alone but then she noticed the girl's older sister approaching in a hurry.

"I told you to slow down" she scolded Elaine, who looked up at her with a mischievous smile

"Sorry but I saw Haleigh" she explained, Haleigh grinning a toothy smile at the older girl.

"I know, but mom is going to kill me if I lose you" she deadpanned and Elaine giggled, obviously aware that her sister was exaggerating.

Up until this point Karai had just stood there awkwardly but that was when Elaine's sister turned her attention from the seven year olds to the girl her own age.

"I'm Paton by the way, don't think I introduced myself at the party" she said and Karai snapped her attention out of the clouds.

"Karai" she introduced herself, Paton nodded but didn't have time to say anything else before her sister began pulling on her pant leg.

"We're going to see mommy" Elaine informed her sister who nodded and with that the two little girls hurried off.

"My mom brought her coloring stuff" Paton explained to Karai who nodded, debating whether or not to try and follow Haleigh or go back to Mrs. Baker, which considering Ken was around she really didn't want to do.

"I'm going to get a soda, you want to come?" Paton asked and thankful for someone to hang around with Karai agreed.

After the two had gotten their soda's they sat down on the edge of the fountain in the center of the green and started talking. Karai had noticed that the band was high school kids and discovered that the drummer was Paton's ex-boyfriend.

"What happened?" She asked casually, she would've been a little more sensitive but Paton didn't seem upset about the break up so she figured that she may as well ask.

Taking a swig of her soda Paton shrugged "graduations next year so we figured we might as well think about our futures. The band has it in their minds that they're going to leave town and try to actually get somewhere in music, I'd say it's cliché but they're actually not half bad and I think they can do it, course I'm an optimist. Anyway that's his dream, I'm sticking around here so you know it wouldn't work" she explained, beginning to look as though she felt some remorse over the break up as she thought about it.

"What about a long distance relationship?" Karai questioned but Paton only chuckled

"I'm not that optimistic" she replied, taking another sip of her drink. "Nah, we're better off this way" she finished. "So what about you?" She questioned and Karai shrugged.

"I'm staying with Haleigh and her grandma for a while, long story" was all she said but Paton nodded, understanding that Karai didn't feel like sharing anything beyond that.

"Yo Paton, I've been looking all over for ya" a voice suddenly called, both girls looked up to see a boy in a camouflage sweatshirt with short, buzz cut, brown hair approaching. Paton huffed out a sigh.

"Karai this is my brother Jarrod, Jarrod Karai, what do ya need?" She asked her brother after taking care of introductions, however Jarrod just sat down.

"None of my friends are here" he explained which Paton knew meant he was going to hang around with her.

"Your friends are here" she said but he only rolled his eyes

"Some, and they're in the band" Jarrod pointed out to which Paton shrugged in admittance but said nothing else.

Karai was never a social person, she was never really in a situation where she could've been. Growing up in the Foot didn't leave much time for a social life. But she liked Paton and her brother, they were nice enough but they also seemed to both have this carefree nature to them. Jarrod was insulting Paton with just about every other word that he said but she didn't care, she just laughed and threw an insult right back in his face. Karai couldn't remember the last time she had laughed the way Paton does, truly laughing without caring about what others say about her. She also wondered if this is what she missed, being raised by Shredder is this what she missed out on with her brothers? Paton and Jarrod didn't seem to ever stop fighting, but they also didn't seem to ever stop laughing. They traded insults back and forth and snickered at each others words, like they were the best of friends and the worst of enemies all at the same time. Karai could only hope that her family had somehow survived the Kraang's invasion and that someday she would discover for herself exactly what she missed out on.

* * *

It had been almost a month since the Kraang invaded New York City and Leo was still yet to wake up, and the others were beginning to fear that he never would. It was another midnight in which someone couldn't sleep, tonight it was both April and Casey. Having given up on sleep a half hour ago Casey came into the kitchen for some water but ended up sitting at the table just staring blankly at it's wooden surface. April had lasted a little longer in her room but by now couldn't bear staring up at her ceiling, nothing but memories of the invasion plaguing her mind. She came down for the same reason Casey did and was taken by surprise when she found him at the table.

"Hey" she said as she got her water

"Hey" he replied distractedly, he didn't even look up when April took the seat across from him.

The two sat there in silence for awhile, the only sound being of April taking sips of her water. But finally Casey spoke up.

"Who is Karai anyway?" He questioned, finally glancing up to watch April's reaction.

April narrowed her eyes and avoid Casey's gaze by looking down. "We've told you" she answered him.

"I know but who is she? Like what is she like?" He asked again, he knew Karai was Splinter's long lost daughter raised by Shredder, but he knew nothing about her.

"She's a witch, why?" April answered bitterly, Casey only sighed.

"Leo was still sort of conscious when you left him with me in the van, while you were looking for Splinter. I told him that we'd be out of the city soon and before he fell into, you know his coma, he asked me to find Karai and get her out." He admitted, looking down at the table in guilt. He had failed Leo, the guy probably thought he was about to die, probably still thinks he's about to die. He knew those could very well be his last words and he chose for them to be a request that his friend save the sister who may not even believe who she is, and he failed. "I looked, the whole time we were still in New York I looked, but I don't even know what she looks like" Casey shamefully admitted, tears of guilt starting to form in his eyes.

April gave him a sympathetic look and clenched her fist, but unclenched it just as quickly. Not even she could bring herself to hold a grudge against Karai at this late hour.

"Leo has faith in Karai, he see's good in her but I think he's kidding himself-" she began but Casey cut her off.

"He's not" he mumbled and April looked at him in curiosity before he sighed and looked her in the eyes.

"The very last thing that Leo said before he blacked out was _not with Shredder_" he said, they both knew what it meant.

"Then where is she?" April wondered out loud.


	10. Chapter 10

Karai had found it strange when Mrs. Baker called her at work and asked her to pick up Haleigh at school, considering she got out of work a half hour after Haleigh got out of school. But she said that Haleigh had been held after by her teacher and that only made Karai more confused. Haleigh isn't exactly a little angel and has gotten into her share of trouble at school before, but not usually anything beyond missed homework and one time she accidentally set the class pet free, god Karai was hoping that hadn't happened again. She walked through the now empty halls of the elementary school, after asking a woman at the front desk for directions to Mrs. Albow's classroom. With every step she took, Karai became more and more anxious. Shouldn't Mrs. Baker be the one picking up Haleigh from detention? Would they even let Haleigh go with her? Unfortunately her questions were only made worse when she reached the classroom and found it occupied only by the teacher.

"Um, excuse me? Is Haleigh here?" She asked in a shy voice, wondering if maybe she had the wrong room.

The teacher looked up from her desk and took off her reading glasses to see the girl in her room clearly.

"I was sent to pick her up" Karai further explained, now almost convinced that she had the wrong room. But then she noticed Mrs. Albow's name plate on her desk, this was the right room.

"I'm sorry but who are you?" Mrs. Albow questioned, looking almost as if she had seen a ghost.

"Karai, I'm-" she began but she was cut off

"You, you're Karai?" Mrs. Albow asked in surprise, her eyes going wide as Karai only looked more confused than ever.

"Yes" she answered and that was when Mrs. Albow told her to sit down as she began rummaging through the papers scattered all around her desk.

"I'm sorry, I called Lisa, Haleigh's grandmother, because well I knew Haleigh's mother and last week I asked the kids to write about someone in their family and Haleigh, I figured maybe she would write about Lisa or how she misses her parents but, I'm sorry I was just concerned because I, I didn't think you were real" Mrs. Albow frantically tried to explain but Karai couldn't quite figure out what exactly it was that she was trying to say, and she tried ignore that last comment.

It all made sense, however, when Mrs. Albow finally found the paper she was looking for and handed it to Karai, it was Haleigh's writing assignment.

_My big sister_

_My big sister is seventeen years old and her name is Karai. She is very nice and I love her very much. Karai is adopted, she has a daddy and four brothers who live in New York city but she was separated from them a long time ago. She is friends with her brother Leo but doesn't know the other three that well. I hope that someday the aliens leave new york and Karai can go home but when that happens I know that I will miss her very very much. She sleeps on our couch and doesn't get mad when I watch TV in the morning, she helps me with my homework and sometimes teaches me words in Japanese. When my mommy and daddy died I was very sad but then Karai joined our family and I was happy again. She is the best big sister ever and I love her very much._

To say that Karai was touched by Haleigh's words would be an understatement. She knew that Haleigh saw her as her friend, and she knew that she looked at Haleigh as a little sister of sorts. But to see what Haleigh truly thinks of her, to see it written down that she loves her, Karai almost couldn't believe it. But here it was, written in black and white.

* * *

On the way home Karai felt truly happy for maybe the first time in her life. For once her life seemed to be falling into place instead of falling apart. Even if she would never see her real family again and never get the chance to apologize for what she did, for everything she did, she has a home here. Haleigh views her as a sister, Haleigh loves her, and it feels so amazingly different than Shredder who claimed to have cared about her. This place, Northampton, no matter if she ever returned to New York or not, was home to Karai now.

But like so many good things the happy feeling didn't last long.

As soon as she got out of the car she saw Haleigh and Elaine come running from the backyard, fear written all over their faces. Karai had just barely shut the door when the two girls reached her and Haleigh jumped into her arms. Karai just managed to catch her, the little girl sitting on her arms as she wrapped her own arms tightly around the teenager's neck. At first Karai was shocked by this, no one had ever in her life gone to her for protection. Elaine also stopped upon reaching Karai and stood in front of her catching her breath.

"What happened?" Karai asked in concern

"The monsters back!" Haleigh shouted into Karai's ear, she winced slightly at the sudden outburst right into her eardrum.

"What are you talking about?" She questioned, suddenly a lot less concerned.

"The monster of the big white house! He's back! We saw him!" Elaine exclaimed, still slightly out of breath.

"And again I ask, what are you talking about?" Karai questioned again, she tried to put Haleigh down but the little girl only tightened her legs on Karai's waist, however she pull back enough to look her 'big sister' in the eyes.

"There's a big white house on the other side of the woods and a monster lives there, sometimes he walks through the woods. Nobody's seen him in a few years but we just did! He's back!" Haleigh explained, throwing her head back onto Karai's shoulder once she was finished.

"Alright if you're not going to get off at least loosen your grip because you're choking me" Karai squeaked out before Haleigh relaxed her arms, allowing her to breath again.

"Thank you, now I'm sure that whatever it is you two saw in the woods was just an animal. There's no such things as monsters" Karai tried to tell them but Elaine only glared up at her.

"There's such things as aliens" she pointed out and Karai rolled her eyes.

"Ok yes aliens are real but monsters aren't" Karai deadpanned, in the end no one was really sure who won that argument but the girls ended up playing in the house.

Karai didn't think that this 'monster' was anything to be concerned about, until the girls told Mrs. Baker and she scolded them for having gone near the house.

"What's the big deal about that house?" She asked casually once the little girls had disappeared upstairs to Haleigh's room.

Mrs. Baker sighed, thinking about that horrible house twenty minutes down the road.

"For years nothing. The O'Neil family used to live there, they were strange people. They kept mostly to themselves, people used to say that Mr. O'Neil had once been very friendly and one day he just shut the world out, same with his wife, of course they both passed away around sixty-five and anyone who knew them is now long dead. It was local legend that he was a mad scientist or something along those lines and that his son was carrying on his work, just a legend mind you. But ten years ago, the O'Neil's just disappeared." Mrs. Baker explained, it took everything Karai had in her not to let her eyes go wide.

"What, what happened to them?" She asked, mentally telling herself that O'Neil is a common last name and that it couldn't be April's family.

Mrs. Baker shook her head "I wish I knew. But I don't want Haleigh or you anywhere near that house" she said sternly and Karai nodded.

* * *

She knew she shouldn't be doing this, she absolutely hated disobeying Mrs. Baker, but Karai snuck out that night. She just had to see this house for herself, not being too far from New York it really could be April, besides Haleigh and Elaine had claimed to have seen a monster, what if it was one of the turtles?

_Don't get your hopes up _Karai mentally scolded herself. She couldn't hope too much, couldn't let herself feel that kind of disappointment if she turned out to be wrong.

"What was that?" A questioning voice snapped Karai out of her thoughts as she walked through the woods, and she froze in place. Scanning the surrounding trees she saw two figures also frozen where they stood, staring back at her.

"What are you guys doing out here?" Karai questioned as the other two figures released their breath.

"We could ask you the same question" Jarrod's voice joked as Karai approached him and his sister.

"Elaine came home saying she had seen a monster in the woods and he says that he saw Mr. O'Neil's van at the old house last week, we're going to check it out" Paton explained but Karai eyed her curiously.

"And the bat?" She asked, Paton was carrying a softball bat

"Hey my best friend used to live in that house and one day she just vanished, now my little sister claims to have seen a monster there. I ain't taking any chances" she answered bluntly.

* * *

Although Karai knew that the turtles, along with April, would probably kill her for bringing Paton and Jarrod along if they in fact are there but with no good excuse she kept her mouth shut and fallowed her friends through the woods, besides she had no idea how to get to the house. As they walked she couldn't help but steal a few glances at Paton, who was being uncharacteristically quiet.

"You alright?" She asked and Paton snapped her attention out of her thoughts

"Fine" she replied

"So, you knew someone who lived there?" Karai awkwardly asked but Paton sighed

"My friend April, aside from Jarrod she was my only friend. We were only six when she disappeared" Paton admitted, Karai didn't know what to say, mostly because she knew what had happened to April, but luckily Jarrod butted into he conversation before she could've said anything.

"Which I still don't get. She was your best friend so why do you keep insisting that she's dead?" He asked, Paton looked at him in annoyance.

"Cause if she's fine, and if she is at the house, then what's us showing up in the middle of the night going to look like hm? Hey April, remember us? The friends you left behind back in first grade?" She questioned "Not to mention how weird and obsessive it sounds that we still care" she continued but Jarrod wouldn't give in.

"Our best friend disappeared. I don't care how young we were, we should still be worried about her" he argued, the rest of the walk was silent.

Upon reaching the edge of the woods by the O'Neil's farmhouse the three teenagers saw the colorful van parked in the driveway.

"I don't believe it" Paton said, eyes locked on the van she never believed she would see again.

"Come on" Jarrod said, exiting the woods

"What are you doing?" Paton exclaimed as her brother made is way closer to the house

"Getting some answers" he responded and against her better judgement Paton chased after him, still clutching her bat.

"Dude it's after midnight, everyone here is asleep. Let's bail and come back tomorrow" she argued with him and he looked like he was about to argue but that's when Karai stepped in.

"She's right, we'll come back tomorrow" she intervened

"Are you kidding? We've learned the hard way once that people can just vanish from this house in the middle of the night, do you seriously want to take that risk again?" Jarrod questioned, aiming it more at Paton than Karai.

"I doubt whoever is in there wants to have this conversation at midnight" Paton argued.

* * *

Little did the three teenagers on the front lawn know, their quarreling had attracted the attention of the hockey player asleep on the living room couch inside of the house. Still groggy from sleep he stood up and peeked through the curtains to see three kids about his own age on the lawn arguing amongst themselves, and one had a bat. Not knowing what else to do he ran upstairs to April's room and began shaking her awake.

"Red, Red wake up, April!" he said quietly and urgently as he shook her shoulder a little harder than he maybe needed to.

"What? I'm up Casey quit shaking me" She snapped as she sat up on the bed and rubbed the sleep from her eyes.

"Sorry but I heard noises and there are people outside" Casey explained and April shot up before bolting out of the room, Casey right on her tail, and they raced down the stairs to look out the living room window.

"What's going on?" Raph's voice came from the top of the stairs, obviously the two humans barreling down the stairs had woken him up.

"There's people outside" Casey admitted and that was when April gasped

"Yeah, and one of them's Karai" she told them.


	11. Chapter 11

She looked different, April could tell even in the dark that Karai had let her hair grow out a little and that it was now hanging loosely by her chin. She couldn't see what the kunoichi was wearing but it didn't look like her armor, in fact it sort of looked like the civilian clothes she had been wearing when they first met. The fact that Karai was with two other people made April feel a little uneasy about this, especially since the other girl appeared to be armed. But it also looked like she and Karai were arguing with the boy over something, and they seemed to be winning.

"So what do we do? Invite her inside or hope she leaves?" Raph questioned, April had been so caught up in watching the teenagers outside that she had failed to notice Raph coming to join her and Casey in the living room.

"I say we let her in" Casey offered but clearly that was not the response which Raph was hoping for.

"You don't know her, and what about her friends? There's four mutant turtles living here, we can't bring them in" He pointed out and Casey frowned

"I don't know about her friends but like I told April, Leo asked me to find Karai just before he slipped into a coma. Now she just showed up on the front lawn, we have to bring her in here" he argued.

"What if she doesn't believe us?" Raph questioned angrily

"What if she does?" Casey challenged and the two became so caught up in their argument that they didn't even see when April slipped out the door.

* * *

"Come on, let's go" Paton groaned when she and Karai had finally worn Jarrod down enough to get him to go home. She grabbed her brother's wrist and started to walk away but that was when the sound of a door opening grabbed her attention.

She turned to see a red haired teenage girl standing on the front porch wearing plaid pajama pants and plain yellow sweatshirt, for everyone time seemed to stop.

Paton and Jarrod couldn't believe it. Their best friend who for years they had believed to be dead was standing right in front of them. Karai's silence didn't come from shock, since she knew April was in fact alive all these years. Her silence was rooted in fear, to be honest she had been expecting disappointment tonight. She had been expecting to find the house empty and deserted, expecting to find that no one was here and there wasn't any hope for her family, but she was wrong. April didn't know what to do, she didn't know if it was good or bad that Karai had found them, probably bad, and she didn't recognize the other two teenagers, though the boy did look a little familiar. Neither of them looked too dangerous, considering the girl was holding her bat very loosely and letting it fall limp behind her, but looks can be deceiving.

"April?" The boy broke the seemingly endless silence

April wracked her brain for his identity, he sounded almost like he couldn't believe she was here and she couldn't understand why because she really could not remember who he is.

"I'm sorry have we met?" She asked, not knowing what else she could say to him.

He frowned and sighed while the girl with the bat, although looked slightly irritated, quickly shook away her initial reaction in exchange for a smile and the dropping of her weapon.

"Yeah, a long time ago. Paton and Jarrod, we used to be friends" the girl explained and April broke into a smile.

Suddenly she hurried off the porch and surprised Paton by wrapping her in a hug

"Oh my god I didn't even recognize you guys" she said, releasing Paton from the hug and noticing that Jarrod was smiling once again.

"Oh and this is Karai" Paton quickly introduced, neither Karai or April was really sure of what to do.

"Hi" April said awkwardly, but Karai understood that she would be returning to this house soon on her own to explain herself to April, but for now their history with each other would be kept a secret and for that Karai was grateful.

"Hi" she repeated before turning to Paton and Jarrod "Alright I don't know about you guys but there is no way I got out undetected. I better get going before Mrs. Baker decides to come looking for me" she said and it was true, though she had been stealthy as ever in leaving the house and in the past she had a few successes in sneaking out of Foot headquarters she knew that Mrs. Baker would somehow know that she had left the house and was probably grabbing her car keys right now.

But she also said it to tell April that she has changed, she didn't hunt her or her old friends down and she didn't come to fight, she's not who she was less than two full months ago.

* * *

"I was wondering when you would come home" Mrs. Baker's stern voice said as Karai came through the front door, not at all surprised to find the old woman sitting on the stairs waiting for her.

"I'm surprised you didn't think I ran away" she answered with a chuckle but Mrs. Baker simply held up her black backpack, completely unamused.

"You left your stuff, now where were you?" She demanded and Karai sighed, leaning against the door.

"I went to the O'Neil's house" she admitted and as expected Mrs. Baker rolled her eyes

"What did I tell you just this afternoon? I realize that you kids always want to see these haunted places but this isn't some legend! A family disappeared from that house!" She scolded Karai who was refusing to look her in the eye, she knew this was worth it for what she had discovered at the house but it still hurt, she still hated that she had disobeyed the woman who had been so kind to her.

"I know Mrs. Baker but, back in New York my brother's had a friend named April O'Neil" she began to explain, and she caught it when Mrs. Baker recognized April's name as that of the little girl who disappeared a decade ago. "I just had to know if maybe it was her family, it is. She's alive and she knows what happened to my dad and my brothers. I'm meeting her back there tomorrow, we're going to figure everything out then, I'm sorry" she apologized, once again looking down at her feet.

But much to her surprise Mrs. Baker stood up and wrapped her in a hug.

"Just tell me next time" the older woman said and Karai nodded against her shoulder, returning the hug. "And I know that you haven't been here very long but I just want to make sure you know that you can call me grandma if you want to, no matter what happens you will always have a family here" she continued and by that Karai was completely and utterly stunned.

She knew how Haleigh thought of her, but Haleigh's seven. She knew that Mrs. Baker sympathized with her, she had once been a run away herself. But to hear that, to hear that even if she returned to New York, even if her father and brothers accepted her, these people would still love her, she didn't know what to say.

Mrs. Baker felt Karai briefly tense up in her arms and for the first time it crossed the old woman's mind that maybe her surrogate granddaughter didn't understand this. She knew Karai had been hesitant to stay in the first place, and in truth she had expected her to run off within the first three days. But she stayed and over the last couple weeks Mrs. Baker had come to think of the teen as a granddaughter. When she got the call from Mrs. Albow, saying Haleigh had made up an imaginary sister, she had to keep herself from laughing and sent Karai to the school so she could see the paper, knowing that if Haleigh ever said anything Karai would take it purely as her being silly. She knew that these things take time and honestly she didn't expect Karai to ever see her as a grandmother, but she also knew that if she ever did she wouldn't say anything unless she knew that it was ok.

* * *

The next day Karai returned to the farmhouse alone, and found April waiting for her on a wooden swing in the yard. Taking a deep breath she approached the swing nervously, her arms wrapped around herself.

"Hey" she said and April looked up, of course she already knew that Karai was here.

"Hey" she returned, now in the daylight she noticed how different Karai really looked. Not only had her hair grown out slightly but the blond dye was beginning to fade. She also noticed that the girl's civilian clothes were not in fact the ones she wore during their first meeting, rather she was wearing dark blue skinny jeans and a pink v-neck t-shirt. Her make-up had also been toned down since the last time the two really saw each other, as she no longer had the red wing like pattern coming from her eyes.

Hesitantly Karai sat down next to April and for a moment neither of the girls said anything.

"Whose Mrs. Baker?" April finally asked, looking at the ground with Karai doing the same.

"A woman in town. I found her granddaughter walking home but she was… well sick and couldn't make it home by herself. I brought her home and when her grandmother figured out that I was.. on my own, she took me in. I've been here ever since" Karai explained.

April eyed her curiously, out of all the things she had been expecting this certainly wasn't on the list. She had expected that Karai had maybe followed them here, though she couldn't for the life of her figure out what she was doing with her childhood friends. But the girl sitting next to her was not the same girl who had attacked her a year ago at Murakami's. That Karai had been deceitful and cunning but also confident, this Karai truly looked broken.

"Do you believe Leo?" April finally asked after a long silence and Karai let out a sigh.

"To be honest, I don't know" she admitted, finally looking up and saw April meeting her gaze. "Something like that, it's not something I can believe based purely on Leo's word. I'll admit I am seriously doubting Shredder being my father, there is actually a lot of evidence to say that he isn't. But for now all I know is that I want to believe Leo and even if he's lying I don't agree with what Shredder has done, and I'll help you take him down" she continued, April just stared for a minute dumbfounded, trying to figure out what exactly to say.

"Come on" she finally said before standing up, Karai followed her lead but couldn't really believe that April appeared to be trusting her so quickly.

The two girls walked to the front door of the house in silence, April not entirely sure if she should be doing what she was doing and Karai not believing it. So it didn't really come as unexpected when April stopped in front of the door.

"Look, ordinarily this would be Leo's call but… he's not exactly…" April trailed off, rubbing the back of her neck sheepishly as she tried to find the words to explain what had happened with Leo.

April's discomfort caused Karai's heart to feel as though it had stopped and her stomach to knot up as a sense of panic overtook her. What happened to Leo?

"What?" Karai asked in a desperate voice, truly fearing that he was dead.

"He's in a coma" April finally admitted, it was far from good news but it was better than what Karai had been expecting to hear.

"I don't really know how you left things with the others so just, brace yourself" April advised before she opened the door, and the two of them stepped into the house.


	12. Chapter 12

When the two girls walked into the house the reaction was surprisingly better than expected. Karai had expected Raphael to be in there waiting to throw her out of the house via the nearest window. But he wasn't anywhere in sight. They walked into the living room where Mikey and Donnie were sitting on the couch watching _Crognard the Barbarian_, which Karai recognized thanks to living with Haleigh, however they both removed their attention from the TV to acknowledge the girls standing in the doorway.

Karai held onto one arm awkwardly as she looked at the ground, a part of her just wanted to disappear.

"So you believe us?" Donnie's question finally broke the silence. He felt a little rude being so blunt but somebody had to say something.

With a deep breath Karai looked up to meet her younger brother's gaze "I don't know, but I've realized that Shredder was wrong. If you'll accept me, I'll fight along side you" she answered.

Mikey and Donnie exchanged glances with each other and April, they hadn't been expecting her to be so willing to betray Shredder and secretly Donnie was questioning her honesty. But April had trusted her enough to bring her inside so he would trust her judgement. Apparently Mikey would too because he stood up and crossed over to the girls, eyes locking with Karai's.

"You'll see sis, we are telling the truth" he said to her and with that he wrapped his arms around her waist and hugged her tightly.

April and Donnie looked at each other in surprise, neither one of them had been expecting Mikey to do that and saw it as even more of a surprise when Karai returned Mikey's gesture.

When the two of them pulled apart April cleared her throat

"Do you want to see Leo?" She asked, unsure of if Karai really wanted to look at the only brother to trust her from day one, unconscious and fighting for his life.

But she nodded and followed the red head up the stairs where she was led to a bathroom, where Raph was watching over Leo. Upon hearing the girls approach the doorway he turned and glanced over his shoulder at them before he stood up and without a word left the room, making sure his shoulder made contact with Karai's as a warning when he did.

"He'll come around" April said, not having missed Raph's silent message.

"Can't blame him if he doesn't" Karai replied and it was true, if she was in his shoes she wouldn't have gone quietly.

Putting Raphael's attitude out of her mind for the time being Karai walked into the bathroom with April remaining in the doorway. It broke her heart to see Leo lying unconscious in the bathtub, and it broke her heart even more when her eyes found the healing scars which decorated his plastron, it was plain for her to see that Shredder had been responsible for this. Of course there were other marks too, many of them looked like the came from Tiger Claw or Bradford.

_God Leo what did you do? Take on the entire Foot Clan by yourself? _Karai wondered to herself, unaware that that is exactly what Leo had done.

"He's gotten a little better since we left New York" April said although in reality he hadn't gotten much better, the biggest improvement was that some color had returned to his face.

* * *

"So what? We're gonna trust her?" Raph asked Mikey and Donnie, Casey had gone into town before Karai showed up, saying that he didn't want to be around in case this family reunion went south. But he could only hide in town for so long and would probably be back soon, at this rate it would be before Karai left.

"Leo would want us to" Donnie pointed out

"Leo also wouldn't be thinking straight" Raph pointed out

"Raph" Mikey whined but it did little good

"What? Leo has been convinced that Karai has good in her since the day they met, now I'm not saying that she doesn't but every time we trust her we end up getting stabbed in the back" the red banded turtle said, not really sure what end results he was after here.

"Technically we stabbed her in the back at the docks" Donnie reminded his brothers "but she did disappear from the city almost two months ago, at least that's the last time we saw her. Besides what do we have to lose?" The genius turtle continued.

"How about our lives" Raph scoffed

"Raph if she attacked us it would be a five on one fight, six on one when Leo wakes up, she couldn't win. Aside from that what do we have, our identities? The whole world knows about the Kraang now, four mutant turtles seriously wouldn't raise any questions, and no Mikey that does not mean you can go into town." Donnie explained, earning a groan from a rather disappointed Mikey.

Raph thought it over and had to admit that his younger brother made a good point, they really have nothing to lose by trusting her so for once he agreed to give his sister the benefit of the doubt, however he wasn't exactly happy about it.

* * *

The next couple of days came and went at an almost agonizingly slow rate. Karai came by the house just about every day, if for nothing else just to prove that she isn't going anywhere. Mikey was pretty open to having her around, one might even say he was excited by it. Donnie never really said much to her, he was usually in the barn which he had transformed into a make shift lab. Raph, if he ever left his stool in the bathroom, sort of frowned upon seeing Karai but never said anything. April and Casey were friendly towards her, according to the others her appearance had lifted Casey's spirits due to his request from Leo, she still couldn't believe that when he was in so much pain Leo had been worried about her. After the first week things seemed to settle down and the others became used to having her around, on the second day she told April that if they didn't want her there she would just stay away but the red head assured her that although Raph might need some time to adjust they all wanted her to stick around.

She made a habit of coming around close to dinner time, she learned quickly that Raph didn't eat supper until late at night because he felt the need to watch Leo and while the others didn't exactly eat together they did eat around the same general time. It was nearly an hour or so later than when Mrs. Baker usually had supper ready so Karai decided that she would eat her dinner then go to the farmhouse and considering she walked there it was getting close to when the turtles were starting to scan through the mostly bare cabinets of the house for their own supper by the time she arrived.

Raph knew she was there, that evening four days after she had starting coming over. He could feel her presence behind him, staring him down from the doorway of the bathroom.

"Thought you left four hours ago?" He questioned the girl Mikey referred to as a sister, not turning around to face her.

"Figured you could use a break" she said, stepping into the room as Raph finally glanced over his shoulder. "Go eat, I'll watch Leo" she said.

Raph understood her tone perfectly, it was not an offer but an order, however he still challenged her.

"What makes you think I'll leave you alone with my brother?" He questioned her, he saw her golden brown eyes narrow as she crossed her arms over her stomach. He was still sitting so he had to look up at her and as he did, though he couldn't quite place it, he could've sworn he saw something soft hidden within the rock solid features of her face.

"He's my brother too" she told him, her voice bordering between anger, pain, and maybe even a hint of comfort.

In that moment, though he was too stubborn to admit it, Raph understood. It wasn't exactly that she doesn't believe them, it's that she doesn't want to admit that she ever fell for Shredder's lie in the first place. With a sigh Raph got to his feet

"I'll be back in ten minutes" he told her before he left the room.

Once he was gone Karai glanced sympathetically at Leo and grabbed a washcloth hanging over the edge of the tub. Dunking it in the lukewarm water before wringing it out she gently applied it to Leo's forehead, wishing that he would just wake up. She stood for the entire time that she did this and when she finally did sit down she sat on the floor against the wall just across from the sink, she would not take Raph's stool. She didn't know if the others ever dared to when left to watch over Leo but she wouldn't. When Raph came back he simply glanced at her to inform her that she could go and she got the message but as she left the room she heard Raph's soft and barely audible voice

"Thanks" he muttered, Karai stopped for a moment and smiled to herself

"You're welcome" she said just as quietly.

* * *

"Haleigh, where's my stuff?" Karai called when she returned home one day only to find her backpack missing from the foot of the couch where she knew she had left it.

"It's in my room" Haleigh's voice called back, sounding as though she was also in her room.

"Why is my stuff in your room?" Karai called as she began to make way for the stairs

"Come see!" Was the response she got from her little sister.

Karai frowned as she made her way up the stairs, she could only imagine why Haleigh had stolen her things. Actually she really was wondering what use Haleigh had for her clothes and make-up, ok the make-up she had a pretty good idea.

"Ok I'm here, now what did you-" she began to question but didn't get any farther than that when she saw that Haleigh's princess canopy was gone and in it's place was the top bunk of the bed which had been stored away in the attic years ago. Hanging off the bed post of the top bunk was the backpack which Karai was looking for.

"Surprise!" Haleigh happily exclaimed and Karai didn't know whether to be happy or annoyed, she decided on annoyed.

"I thought I told you not to set up the spare bed?" She questioned the little girl

"You did, we stopped listening" Mrs. Baker said from behind her, Karai turned with an amused smirk overtaking her face.

"I don't have a choice do I?" She questioned and Mrs. Baker's smirk matched hers

"Oh sweetie, you should know by now that in this house you never have a choice" the old woman joked before continuing on her way.

* * *

After two weeks and a lot of begging Karai finally got the turtles to agree to letting her tell Haleigh and her grandmother about them. At first they were all dead against it, except for Mikey who loved the idea of meeting new people. Casey really didn't have any opinion on the subject and after a few days Donnie and April changed their minds, Raph however needed some persuading.

"How does she know we can trust these people?" Raph demanded when April tried talking to him on morning during breakfast.

"Maybe because they took her in?" she suggested

"The old lady took her in, it's her granddaughter that I'm worried about. Little kids have giant mouths" Raph defended his point and April had to agree with that, though sometimes if asked little kids can keep a secret.

"Raph I get where you're coming from, and it is your secret. But Karai has lived a lie her entire life and now these people have taken her in, she just doesn't want to hide anything from them" April said, trying to reason with Raph and took his response of no response as consideration. "Just think about it" she asked of him before leaving the kitchen.

The next afternoon Raph gave in, but made it very clear that if their secret got out Karai would be in big trouble.

"I mean it Haleigh, do not tell ANYONE about my brothers" Karai lectured as the two girls neared the farmhouse.

"I know, you keep telling me" Haleigh groaned while kicking a rock along the dirt road. She couldn't see what the big deal was, her friends all knew about Karai's brothers and Karai said that was fine but from here on out she wasn't to speak of them anymore, soon she would understand the reason.

As they turned onto the driveway a pit formed in Karai's stomach, a part of her was wondering if this was really a good idea or not. But she was taking a chance and she could only hope that Haleigh wouldn't make her regret it. She could see Mikey outside of the barn, no doubt searching for something to do. Unfortunately Haleigh also caught sight of the orange banded turtle and, the story not yet having been explained to her, she screamed. Her shriek of fear caught Karai way off guard and she acted on instinct when Haleigh jumped into her arms, much like she had done that day she ran out of the woods.

"It's the monster! Run!" She shouted into Karai's ear, the scream had been heard by pretty much everybody and though Mikey was cautiously approaching the others, who were watching from the house window, sort of just laughed at the scene. Whether they were laughing at the little girl's reaction or the fact that she was relying on Karai of all people to save her was unclear.

"Haleigh, Haleigh, Haleigh!" Karai tried to get the little girl's attention through her panicked sobs "Haleigh he's not a monster" she said, by now Mikey had reached them and he looked hurt. Karai looked at him apologetically as she rubbed her hand up and down Haleigh's back, trying to calm her.

Haleigh, though still afraid, did register that Karai was not running away and had just stood there while the 'monster' approached them, she also noticed that the 'monster' hadn't attacked. She tightened her grip on Karai's neck and buried her face into her shoulder

"Haleigh come on" Karai said in frustration, she tried to pull the little girl at least slightly off of her but the tightening of Haleigh's legs around her waist was a clear indicator that that was not happening. "This is my brother, Mikey" she confessed, hoping that if Haleigh knew who the turtle was she might open up, or at least get off her sister.

Haleigh did turn her head to look at Mikey, his sad and hurt frown turning into a ghost of his usual happy smile.

"Why don't you help him feed the chickens?" Karai suggested, testing her luck in trying again to put Haleigh down. Much to her surprise Haleigh allowed it this time, which only made Mikey's smile grow.

"Come on" he invited in a friendly voice, Haleigh was still hesitant but upon looking back to see Karai giving her an encouraging smile she obediently trailed after Mikey.

"So do you like pizza?" Karai could hear Mikey ask and she couldn't help but giggle to herself, Haleigh's uncertainty was not going to last long.


	13. Chapter 13

It was just past ten at night when the rain started and ten-thirty when the thunder and lightning began. Karai didn't have any problems with storms, in fact she liked them. She liked the loud crack of the thunder and the bright flashes of lightning as the rain hammered down on the roof, she hadn't always been this way but as she grew up she learned to love it. However when you share a bunk bed with a seven year old the room is still filled with panic.

Karai could hear Haleigh on the bunk below as she tossed and turned, no doubt trying to find a way to use her blankets to shield her from the storm outside. Karai couldn't help but smile to herself when she realized that down the road Mikey was probably hiding in his shell doing the same thing, the image was pretty amusing. Suddenly there was a loud clap of thunder, so loud even Karai sat up clutching a fistful of her blankets. It sounded like the sky had literally ripped open right above the house. At the sound of it Haleigh nearly screamed and the instant it was over she appeared on the ladder.

"Karai? Can I sleep with you?" She asked timidly, though she became slightly less nervous when she saw that Karai too was afraid.

"Sure" Karai said as she scooted over, happiness quickly overtook Haleigh's face and she crawled onto the bed.

Karai adjusted her blankets so that they now covered both of them. Haleigh, still terrified of the storm outside, pressed herself up against Karai and lay her head against her chest. Considering Karai was lying on her side this forced her to put one arm straight out over Haleigh's head, which was extremely uncomfortable. She wanted to protest, at least roll onto her back so that she could reposition her arm. But looking at the frightened expression of Haleigh's face slowly starting to calm as the little girl eased into sleep Karai knew that somehow Haleigh felt safe like this, so during that whole night, even in her sleep, Karai didn't move.

* * *

"So you guys hear the storm last night?" Raph questioned Karai the next afternoon while she was sitting on the floor against the wall and he was on his stool, both of them watching over Leo.

"Yeah, my arm still hurts" she answered only for Raph to look at her curiously "Haleigh slept in my bed" she explained and Raph nodded.

"I'll trade ya, I had Mikey" he half joked and Karai laughed

"I figured he probably doesn't do good in storms" she said and Raph chuckled.

"Yeah, I like the weather but Mikey, he's a little more of a scaredy cat" he said and although Karai chuckled her thoughts, in a way, where elsewhere.

She and Raph had learned to tolerate each other more in the past two weeks, at least enough to where they could be in the same room together. But this was their first real conversation and Karai couldn't help but be surprised by the idea that maybe they were more alike than they would like to admit.

"Some people are like that" she finally said, not wanting the conversation to end so soon.

However before either of them could've said anything else Haleigh was heard screaming downstairs fallowed by the sound of feet running up the stairs.

"That's what we get for leaving her with Casey" Raph sighed as the screaming second grader came into sight at the top of the stairs and hurried into the bathroom, throwing herself down atop her big sister's lap.

"Ugh, Haleigh what's wrong? I told you to be quiet when you're upstairs" Karai scolded the little girl as she lay atop her legs and buried her face against her stomach. Despite focusing on Haleigh Karai didn't miss Raph's reaction to her scolding, he didn't think she'd taken it into consideration that for Leo's sake he probably wanted the upstairs mostly quiet.

"Come on Haleigh, I was just kidding!" Casey exclaimed in defense as he appeared in the doorway panting, Karai could only imagine what this was about.

Haleigh clutched the sides of Karai's shirt with a death grip, she wasn't crying but she was certainly far from being ok.

"What did you do this time Jones?" Raph asked, crossing his arms as he glared at his best friend.

"I asked him to look at my loose tooth and he said that he was going to get his hockey stuff and knock it out!" Haleigh exclaimed in fear, turning her head to the side so that her voice wouldn't be muffled.

"I was kidding! My dad used to say that to me and my sister all the time!" Casey defended himself.

Karai rolled her eyes, wondering how on earth she had ended up as referee for a misunderstanding between a seven year old and a seventeen year old.

"Yeah and you're still missing three teeth from it!" Raph exclaimed which only caused Haleigh to burry her face again in fear that Casey may actually do as he said.

"Hey those were all accidents, and one of them was my fault!" The hockey player defended

"Casey if I could stand up right now you'd be the one afraid of losing another tooth, so please just go back downstairs" Karai warned and after rolling his eyes Casey did as she asked, muttering the whole way downstairs that he had been joking.

Raph smirked upon noticing that Haleigh still refused to move, despite Casey being gone. She seemed to be quite content just lying atop Karai's legs with her face buried against the teenager's stomach.

"Are you going to fall asleep there or something?" Karai asked but Haleigh gave no response

"Is she out already?" Raph asked, almost laughing

"I don't think so" Karai answered, trying to get a look at Haleigh's face but that was proving impossible. "Haleigh?" She questioned but again got no response so she just rested her hands on the little girl's back.

One thing she had learned during her time in Northampton was that Haleigh could be rather clingy. According to her grandmother she had been that way since she was born but had begun to grow out of it over the last two years, the family figured that the sudden death of her parents sent her back a few steps. Ken wanted to send her to therapy, saying that the kid would never be independent if they didn't do something about her nature. But so far Mrs. Baker was refusing and Karai couldn't blame her, the poor girl had lost her parents just about two months ago, give her more time before sending her to a shrink.

Raph on the other hand almost couldn't believe his eyes. Sitting against the wall, watching Leo but still equally as focused on the possibly sleeping little girl on her lap, was Karai of all people. If someone told him a year ago that Karai would be the adoptive sister of a little girl he would've called them crazy. In fact if someone had told him a year ago that Karai was HIS adoptive sister (a fact he was still trying to accept) he would've been sure that they had been inhaling to much Kraang air. But both these things are true and to be honest he knew that he was starting to come around, and he didn't mind. Suddenly Raph was snapped from his thoughts when Haleigh jumped up and raced out of the room, both Karai and him watching her until she was gone from sight.

"Weirdest thing she has ever done" Karai deadpanned.

* * *

Mrs. Baker came and got Haleigh later in the afternoon but Karai stayed, she wanted to stay through dinner so that Raph could go down and eat with the others while she kept an eye on Leo, as had become their routine. So she sat there on the floor against the wall and sure enough Raph came back after ten minutes as he did every night but this time he stayed in the doorway.

"Hey, uh, Donnie wants me to help him test something out in the barn.." he awkwardly began as he tried to ask his question, much to his relief Karai smiled at him.

"Go, I'll keep watch" she confirmed

"You sure?" Raph asked, he was grateful that she was willing to stay a little later and watch over Leo, he really didn't like not having someone on the second floor and between the barn and the woods everyone else was going to be out of the house, but he would stay if she wants to leave.

"Yes, go on" she encouraged and so with a smile and a 'thank you' Raph left for the barn.

Once he was gone Karai looked over at Leo, his condition hadn't improved at all, not that she could see anyway.

"Leo, please wake up" she sighed.

* * *

Raph returned a little over an hour and a half later, Donnie's test of some easier to make smoke bombs ended up as more of a huge mess than anything else. The others were still out there cleaning up but they would be done soon and it was almost nine, he didn't want to make Karai stay too late. Stepping into the bathroom, however, he couldn't help but laugh silently to himself. There, sitting in her spot up against the wall with her head drooping to one side, Karai was fast asleep. Shaking his head in slight amusement Raph decided that he may as well move her so he went over and carefully picked her up. He held her bridal style, though she stirred from the moment he touched her and once he had gathered her into his arms her eyes briefly flickered open.

"Hm?" She muttered as she began to wake up

"Go back to sleep" Raph ordered her, she was still half asleep but she was sentient enough to register what was happening.

"I've gotta, I've gotta go" she mumbled, her words so incoherent that Raph needed to take a moment and decode what it was that she said.

"It's too dark and cold to walk, I'll call Mrs. Baker, let her know you're staying the night" he said, it was more of an order for her to stay than it was an offer but she nodded as her eyes began to droop closed again.

"Ok" she agreed, again almost too silent to hear.

Raph debated on where to bring her but ultimately decided on the room which he and Mikey slept in. The room contained two twin size beds, so he figured that so long as Mikey didn't complain about a different roommate for one night there was no problem. He set Karai down on his bed, deciding that he would sleep in the living room chair tonight, and pulled the blankets over her. Though Karai was asleep and only partially aware of Raphael's actions she still heard what he said as he left the room.

"Night sis" his voice was low and distant, but he said it nothing less and that meant more to Karai than Raph could ever know.

* * *

It was over a month later, about halfway through June, when Karai got the phone call from Raph that Leo was awake. Rummaging through the drawers of the kitchen Karai grabbed the first piece of scrap paper and marker that she could find and scribbled a note for Mrs. Baker, who had brought Haleigh to a friends house. Once that was done she pulled on her sneakers and took off sprinting down the street. She wondered how long she could run like this, she wanted to run all the way to the farmhouse but she hadn't done any long distance running since leaving New York, and she had never been the best runner to begin with. But now all she wanted was to get to her destination, they had just recently been starting to seriously consider the possibility that Leo may never wake, that Raph would go into the bathroom one morning to check for a pulse only to not find one. But now that wouldn't happen, Leo had woken up, and Karai could apologize. At that thought, the thought of facing Leo again, she almost slowed down. But she didn't, instead she ran faster.

* * *

Leo was sitting on the couch watching TV with Mikey, Donnie said that at least for today he really should just rest. Under normal circumstances Leo might have tried to protest, but these circumstances were most certainly not normal. He still couldn't believe that his battle against the Shredder, and the rest of the Foot Clan, had been three months ago, yet his whole body still ached like it had only been a few days ago. He also couldn't believe that he had been in a coma for all that time.

* * *

Outside Donnie was standing in the doorway of the barn with Casey, arguing about a misplaced wrench, when they heard someone panting heavily coming down the path. They both turned to see Karai coming to a stop in the yard, nearly doubling over as she caught her breath.

"Did you seriously run all the way here?" Donnie questioned, knowing it usually took her a good half hour to walk to the house and Raph had only called her ten minutes ago.

"Yes" she panted and didn't miss the teasing grin plastered onto Casey's face.

"What are… you.. laughing at?" She demanded through her attempts at getting air back into her lungs.

"Nothing, just didn't know running took so much out of a trained ninja" he mocked and Karai rolled her eyes as she finally caught her breath and stood up.

"Anything I should know before I go in there?" She asked, making sure to address Donnie and completely ignore Casey.

"Well you won't irritate any injuries by hugging him if that's what your asking" Donnie began to explain, however he stopped when Karai crossed her arms.

"I'm not much of a hugger" she stated plainly, though both of the boys could see right through it. They had learned by now that Karai's 'tough as nails' attitude was more of a mask than anything else. She can defiantly hold her own in a fight, there is no mistaking that, but her actual personality is in fact very loving, you just need to know where to look.

"Right…" Donnie drawled out, wanting to show his sister that he knew she was lying. "Anyway he sustained a lot of permanent damage pretty much everywhere. He's walking with a crutch so just try and keep him on the couch" he continued and Karai nodded, ignoring the fact that her little brother had seen right through her lies.

"The fact that he's walking at all is more than I expected" she half muttered before making her way to the front door of the house.

* * *

Leo heard a knock on the door followed by the sound of it opening.

_That's weird, why would any of the guys knock before coming in? _He wondered to himself, knowing that a complete stranger coming to the house wouldn't open the door. He almost panicked but that was when someone walked into the room, someone he never expected to see again.

She looked different than she did that night on the rooftops, very different. She wore no armor, instead she had on black sneakers, dark blue jean shorts, and a pink t-shirt. He also noticed that her red make-up was gone and although her hair was still short it was longer than it used to be and pulled back into a braid. He was so in shock by the sight of her that he failed to notice Mikey's huge grin until the girl in the doorway smiled and shook her head at him.

"I take it no one told you I was coming?" She questioned, her attention back on Leo as she made her way into the room.

"No" he finally said, his eyes still wide in astonishment.

She giggled slightly at the sound of his voice "Geez did you finally hit puberty while you were in a coma?" She asked and Leo's face fell.

Yup, there it is. The teasing right when he needed it the least, this was defiantly Karai standing in front of him and not some delusion produced as a side effect of Donnie's putrid medicine.

"Calm down, I was just teasing" she said as she took a seat next to him, suddenly his face felt hot and he noticed that aside from her appearance something else was very different about Karai.

He couldn't put his finger on it but something about her had changed, like the last time he saw her she was a closed door and now she was open.

"So, what exactly did I miss?" Leo finally questioned, the fact that Karai is not only here but the others knew that she was coming made it clear that a lot had obviously happened while he was unconscious.

"Not much, I left New York five months ago and have been in Northampton ever since, I'll explain all of that later. Look I still don't know what to believe when it comes to your story of me being Splinter's daughter but regardless I am on your side now" she promised and Leo knew it was true, she still didn't know what to believe but she did know that Shredder has taken things too far, and that was enough for her.


	14. Chapter 14

"What's with you?" Karai questioned when she went in for her shift at the ice cream place and found Jarrod sitting alone at one of the tables, staring down vacantly at its wooden surface.

Jarrod waited until the girl who had been working previously left to answer.

"Am I stupid?" He asked.

The question caught Karai off guard, she could tell that he wasn't being sarcastic or joking, he was completely serious.

"I mean I've never seen your grades but you're not stupid" she answered awkwardly, trying to put some humor into the conversation but her attempt fell flat.

"Karai, I'm serious!" The boy snapped, thankfully the teenagers were the only two in the shop.

Jarrod stared her down, breathing heavily, but Karai held his gaze until his face softened and he looked away, like an injured animal.

"Where is this coming from?" She finally asked, her voice even and calm.

Jarrod sighed, avoiding her gaze.

"Ten years ago my best friend disappeared, just vanished into thin air. I've spent the past ten years wondering what happened to her, if she was even still alive. Then I found her and she didn't even know who I was" he regrettably admitted. "Paton was right, I should've stopped caring years ago" he practically muttered to himself.

"April just didn't recognize you-" Karai began but she was cut off

"I've called the house a couple times, there's either no answer or she says she's busy" Jarrod confessed, Karai struggled trying to choose her next words considering April had told her about this a few weeks ago.

"Things aren't as simple as they were when you were six years old Jarrod, trust me. But you're not stupid for caring" she said and Jarrod looked down with a sigh, Karai could see that he didn't believe her. "I wasn't raised with my brothers Jarrod. My dad thought I died with my mother in the fire" Jarrod looked up when Karai started telling him this, he only knew that at some point she had somehow been separated from her family. "I was stolen by the man who killed my mother and by the time my brothers figured that out, well let's just say that I wasn't the best person" she admitted, trying not to actually tell him who she used to be.

"You didn't…?" Jarrod trailed off with his question but Karai caught it, the unspoken words making her slightly nauseous.

"No I never killed anyone" she answered and frowned in regret while Jarrod sighed in relief "but I was raised to" she confessed, the shock instantly returned to Jarrod's face. "I was raised to kill my biological father, and by the time my brothers figured out who I was three of them were just fine with never telling me. But Leo didn't give up on me, no matter how many times the other's told him it was pointless and that I was gone, he still made sure I found out the truth" she admitted, looking Jarrod dead in the eye. "You're not stupid for worrying all these years. Without people like you and Leo I wouldn't be here" she told him and it was the truth. Without Leo she wouldn't be here, she would be back in New York and she may have been the one to kill Splinter, though like Mikey she still held out hope that he is alive.

"Does your family know?" Jarrod asked after a long silence.

At first Karai looked quizzically at him, considering she had just told him half the story of her family, the other half she would probably never tell him. But then it clicked in her mind what he meant.

"Mrs. Baker knows, Haleigh knows a very kid friendly version. I'm going to wait a few years before telling her the whole story" she answered and Jarrod smirked.

"So you plan on sticking around a few more years?" He questioned, it was no secret that Karai hadn't meant to stay in town that day she decided to pass through looking for something to eat, and that for awhile the Baker's had half expected to wake up one morning and find her gone. Most people in the community knew her by now, and most people didn't like her. Karai knew it too so Jarrod's bet had been that she might stick around for the summer and then leave, unless Haleigh's uncle kicked her out first.

Karai, however, just shrugged in response "I don't know" she said and it was true. Before the turtles showed up she really had no idea what would become of her life, she had just been taking everything day by day. But now that the turtles are here and Leo's awake returning to New York is inevitable, but Karai hadn't thought about what she would do after that.

"What do you mean you don't know?" Jarrod teased

"Do you have your entire life figured out?" Karai sarcastically asked, mostly wanting to end the conversation.

Jarrod smirked "Fine, you going to the fair this weekend?" he asked

"Yeah but I'll be with Haleigh on all the little kid stuff" Karai answered with a laugh.

"She's going with my sister, my mom's taking them" Jarrod told her, Karai just shrugged

"Then I guess I'm not going" she said

"Why not?" Jarrod questioned

"I've never been so if I go alone I'll probably get lost" she answered and Jarrod rolled his eyes

"Yeah cause I was suggesting you go by yourself, stop playing dumb and just come with Paton and me Saturday night" Jarrod half ordered, half asked, Karai decided to comment on the asking part.

"Is this your way of asking me out?" she teased and Jarrod snickered

"You wish" he teased back, making Karai laugh in return

"Alright I'll go, but Paton says you once ate five balls of fried cookie dough in two minutes, do that again and I will barf on you" she half joked half seriously warned as Jarrod stood to go.

"Don't worry, Paton already told me that if I try that again I'm walking home" he sheepishly admitted and then he left the shop.

* * *

"Ow!" Karai cried out just two seconds after she made the mistake of letting Haleigh brush her hair.

"Sorry" Haleigh apologized. Both girls were sitting on Karai's bunk, Haleigh on her knees to reach her older sister's hair.

"It's ok" Karai assured, still wincing in pain when Haleigh pulled down on the brush.

It felt like Haleigh was harshly plowing a rake through her hair and Karai was beginning to wonder why she had agreed to letting Haleigh try this. But she had and so she would suffer through the pain.

"Is Raph ok?" Haleigh asked as she yanked at Karai's hair again, creating more knots than she was getting out.

Karai chuckled, the other day Haleigh wandered into the barn at the farmhouse and asked Donnie why he had a jar labeled _The Creep_. The explanation had given her a nightmare the following night, which also resulted in Karai explaining to the guys that they had to make sure their stories were safe for a seven year old before telling them. However she also found it funny that Leo had been awake for one day and already they had an evil mutant after them.

"He's fine" Karai answered, still unsure of how Donnie had been able to cure Raph.

Haleigh began tying Karai's short hair back in a half decent pony tail before announcing that she was finished.

"Thanks" Karai said gratefully, though she was more grateful that Haleigh was finished than anything else.

With a huge grin Haleigh climbed down from the top bunk. She hurried over to her dollhouse and began quietly playing, muttering whatever it was the toys were saying under her breath. Karai smiled softly at her, though Haleigh didn't notice. She was far too busy entertaining herself to notice her sister watching her contently. Karai caught about every other word that Haleigh said and had to keep herself from laughing. She didn't know why she found it so funny, the conversation amongst Haleigh's dolls sounded like it was Joe telling his daughter to get dressed for school. Maybe that's what was so funny, the fact that Haleigh didn't imagine her dolls were superheroes or princesses or anything like that, they were just a normal family.

* * *

Three days later, however, Karai was painfully reminded that a normal family was something she would never know.

She was at the farmhouse helping the others clean up, and was vacuuming the living room when she heard a loud crash coming from the stairs. Instantly she turned off the vacuum and was in the main hallway in a heartbeat

"What was that?" she questioned in a panic, noticing that April, Donnie, Casey, and Haleigh were also making their way down the stairs.

"Mikey fell down the stairs" Leo answered and Karai turned her attention to Mikey, intending to ask him if he was alright, but he was busy staring at a trap door none of them had noticed previously.

"A trap door? I didn't even know we had a basement" April exclaimed

"What do you suppose is down there?" Leo wondered aloud

Suddenly Mikey jumped behind Raph, gripping the older turtle's shoulders in fear.

"Evil clown, evil clown!" He exclaimed and Raph just shot him an annoyed glare but other than that ignored him as he took his sais from his belt loop and twirled them in his hands.

"Only one way to find out" he said before using his sais to pry open the door and the seven teenagers, plus Haleigh, found themselves staring down at a dark, foreboding staircase.

Instinctively Karai placed a hand on the side of Haleigh's head when the little girl whimpered and pressed up against the side of her leg for protection.

"Uh, whose going first?" Donnie questioned

"Not it!" Everyone except for Leo and Karai chorused, the two losers looked at each other as if to determine who out of them would be the first to go.

"Haleigh called not it and she's attached to my leg" Karai said and Leo growled slightly in response, knowing that Haleigh wouldn't dare go first with Karai and was even less likely to let go of her leg.

Being careful of his crutch on the, most likely, unstable wooden stairs, Leo led the way down into the newly discovered basement. He was followed by Karai, Haleigh right on her heels and holding tightly to her hand. Next came Raph with the flashlight, then Mikey, Donnie, April, and finally Casey. They had only just entered the dark room when Raph shone his flashlight on a big metal object and everyone gasped.

"The Kraang" Leo didn't sound nearly as surprised as he should've, by now how could the Kraang really come as a shock to any of them?

"Whoa"

"It's impossible"

"It can't be"

"It's a Kraang stealth ship" Donnie exclaimed, interrupting his brothers various reactions of shock.

"Wicked!" Casey exclaimed, almost in excitement. It made Karai wonder just exactly how many hockey pucks the vigilante had taken to the head.

"But how, how did they find us?" April asked

"I don't think they did" Donnie announced, running one of his thick fingers over the surface of the metal, more than one coat of dust gathering on his skin. "This ship looks like it's been buried here for years"

"What the heck is a Kraang ship doing underneath my house?" April asked

"Says the girl at the center of the Kraang's plot" Karai commented, the others all looked at her in annoyance. Instantly she knew she had taken a step backwards, a step back towards who she used to be, and she was about to apologize but the ship started beeping before the door opened.

"Only one way to find out, come on" Leo said before leading the others inside, Karai and Haleigh the last to follow.

Inside it was dark but as Raph shone the light around the small room it appeared to look like any other room on a Kraang stealth ship, only abandoned.

"Can we go now?" Haleigh asked in a small voice, Karai looked around, she really wanted to stay.

"Let's just see if we can find a light, if we don't we'll go" Karai promised which Haleigh agreed to, through she still gripped Karai's hand tighter than ever.

"Guys, look" Raph said, pulling Karai and Haleigh's attention back to the others. They found themselves staring at what looked to be some kind of pillar, until their eyes adjusted to the light and they saw that the solid gray was actually dust covered clear glass, with the outline of woman on the inside.

"Is that a person in there?" Casey questioned, upon that realization Haleigh didn't even try to leave, just turned to jump into her sister's arms but Karai was one step ahead of her and picked her up.

"Ok don't touch anything! I repeat, do not, touch, anything!" Donnie said, shooting a glance over his shoulder at Mikey who backed up sheepishly, and consequently leaned on some type of control.

"Mikey!" Donnie shouted

Mikey chuckled nervously "oops. I promise not to touch anything starting now?" He said as if it were a question.

Before Donnie could scold him further his attention was snapped back to the now lit up pod. The smoke cleared from the inside and it opened, and as it did and they all took a step back, April gasped.

"Uh" the woman groaned in a weak voice before opening her eyes

"Mom?!" April asked in shock, the red head didn't notice but Karai snapped her eyes in her direction in disbelief when she spoke.

"Mom?" Casey repeated confused, not thinking that this woman trapped in a Kraang pod could possibly be April's mother.

The woman weakly began climbing down from where she stood but fell almost instantly, thankfully Donnie and Raph caught her.

"Take it easy ma'am" Donnie instructed

"Hold on" Raph said at almost the exact same time.

She looked up and was instantly snapped into full awareness by the boys's appearance, obviously she did not expect to wake up to talking, mutant turtles. Screaming she pushed Donnie away and elbowed Raph in the chest before trying to run away but tripped. This time it was Casey who caught her as she fell forward.

"Oh, uh, don't worry Mrs. O'Neil. These are good mutants" he assured as he helped her to her feet. "Except for Donnie, he's kind of a jerk" he quickly added.

"Yea-Hey!" Donnie responded and Karai couldn't help but chuckle as she watched the whole scene unfold.

"Where am I? And how do you know my-" Mrs. O'Neil began but stopped when she turned around to see April behind her.

April's eyes were wide and she had laid a hand over her chest just to make sure her heart was actually still beating. Seeing this Karai realized that the woman really was April's mother and, though she would hate to admit it, she couldn't help but narrow her eyes for a second before Haleigh decided she was ready to get down.

"A-April?" Mrs. O'Neil asked as she slowly moved closer to her daughter "but, but how? Just a few days ago, you were only six years oollldd" she said in total confusion before fainting again, once again Casey was the one to catch her.

"Mom" April said before she too fainted into Mikey's arms.

"Snap" the orange banded turtle said right after he caught her

Karai once again narrowed her eyes at the scene "you have got to be kidding me" she grumbled under her breath.

* * *

Within twenty minutes both April and her mother were conscious again and everyone was gathered in the living room as April poured some tea for her mom. Karai stood in the doorway, as far away from the scene as she could get without being rude.

"Here you go mom, just relax" April said kindly as she handed her mother the teacup, Karai was already standing with her arms crossed and at this she found herself gripping her bicep tightly.

"Thank you April, I'm still a little shaky" Mrs. O'Neil said apologetically before taking a sip of the hot liquid. She then proceeded to explain the story behind the Kraang ship in the basement and midway through Karai became aware of her fingers digging so deep into her skin that she abruptly uncrossed her arms before they left a mark, her slight anger at the situation diminishing as she listened to the story.

Once Mrs. O'Neil finished the room was silent, everyone taking the information in. Karai looked at Haleigh who had been playing silently in the corner with her doll, she had stopped and paid close attention to the explanation of the ship but did not seemed phased by it in the least.

"All these years, I never knew what happened to you. I never knew what to think, dad would never tell me" April admitted.

Briefly, Karai felt a twinge of pity for April. She may have been lied to about her father her entire life but at least she knows for certain what became of her mother. However this was extremely brief because that was when Mrs. O'Neil got to her feet and took April's hands in her own.

"Now you know, and now we never have to be apart again" she said and she looked as though she was about to say something else but that was when a loud thump interrupted the reunion.

Karai had punched the doorframe, a little harder than she had intended, and found all eyes turning on her.

"I'm going to take a walk" she announced before turning and walking out of the house, practically slamming the door behind her.

The others continued to stare at the spot where she had been standing, she had been unusually quiet since they discovered Mrs. O'Neil in the Kraang ship and her outburst, though unexpected, was understandable to everyone.

"I'll go-" Leo began, taking half a step before he was cut off by Raph sticking his arm out

"She needs to beat out her anger, I'll talk to her" he said and with that he too walked out of the house.

* * *

When Raph got out of the house Karai was halfway to the woods, grumbling something under her breath as she walked. For a minute he trailed her silently, she was too caught up in her rantings to notice he was following her. Once she reached the edge of the woods her words became louder, as if she was no longer worried about someone hearing her.

"I mean what the-" she angrily said to herself aloud but that was when Raph decided to cut her off.

"You always talk to yourself princess?" He asked and she stopped dead in her tracks before turning around, a death glare evident on her face.

"What do you want Raph?" She spat but he only smirked and repeated his earlier action of removing his sais from their holsters and twirling them around his fingers, then he threw one right at her face.

Karai dodged the attack easily and quickly countered by picking up the weapon and charging him, the two clashed sais much like Karai and Leo often clashed swords.

"You know I'm unarmed right?" Karai asked

"Why do you think I gave you a weapon?" Raph taunted back.

So the fight began. They both drew their one sai back and began throwing punches with one arm and swinging the sais in the other.

"So what happened in there?" Raph asked as he blocked a punch from his sister "usually random outbursts of anger is my thing" he continued while delivering a kick to Karai's stomach.

She dodged his foot and gripped his large ankle, twisting it enough to take him down. "Must run in the family" she responded before he rolled onto his back.

Now on his back, Raph grabbed Karai's arms and pulled her down and over him, causing her to crash into the ground on her back while he stood up. He stood over her, staring down as she stared up. She wanted to fight but it was plain to see that the fight was over, and judging by the look on Raph's face it was time to talk.

Letting out a sigh as she sat up and tried to gather her thoughts into words which would neither embarrass her or sound like she hated April, it was a very limited choice.

"April had her mother until she was six years old, mine died when I was still a baby. April was always protected by her father while I had to learn to protect myself, half the time from Shredder. She has you guys, Casey, Paton, Jarrod, and all her other friends who were back in New York. The closet thing I had to friends growing up was my imaginary ones and once in a while I would see this kid one year older than me whose father was friends with Shredder…" she started to explain, feeling stupid for actually being jealous of April. She knows April has enough problems; she's a half Kraang mutant, she just lost her father for the third time, and apparently she never knew what happened to her mother. But still Karai felt like to the world April would always be special.

Surprisingly Raph sat down next to her, he wanted to ask why she ever had to protect herself from Shredder but he decided that was a discussion for another time.

"Can't say I blame you for being jealous" the red banded turtle said, Karai glared at him as if to say that she wasn't jealous but he merely smirked in response. "But if it makes you feel any better it's not just April's whose had a relative come back from the dead" he continued.

"What did Casey's dad disappear before the invasion or something?" Karai questioned, seriously doubting what Raph was telling her.

"No, you did" he said and she looked at him confused. "To us, you died in that fire. The four of us grew up knowing we had a sister who we would never meet, now you're here." He explained and let out a sigh of regret "look I know I can be pretty tough on you-" Raph started but Karai cut him off.

"Not lately, but after everything I did I don't blame you for being tough on me at first" she said and Raph smiled.

"I guess we have been getting along alright lately" he mused and Karai smiled, their bliss was shattered just hours later when they discovered the truth about April's mom, but for that one moment things were peaceful.


	15. Chapter 15

After everything she's been through Karai certainly didn't think that she would have a fear of carnival rides, she was wrong. She did enjoy the rides but she also learned very quickly that she was not immune to that nervous pit in the stomach people get before going on a roller coster for the first time. At this point in the night Paton had gone off with some other friends to get food, neither Jarrod or Karai wanted any so they stayed over at the rides and planned to meet Paton later. Right now they were standing in line for a roller coster with tracks made of plastic ruts and conveyor belts, and carts shaped like logs where people sat one behind the other. It was a water ride, the carts went up one hill then down and underneath a waterfall at the base. The second hill was a tunnel but Jarrod claimed that the inside was lined with sprinklers and at the base was yet another waterfall, this one twice as strong as the first. Naturally the two had decided to do this as the last ride of the night.

"Are you sure this thing is safe?" Karai finally asked when she saw that she and Jarrod were next.

"Of course, it hasn't broken down in three years" Jarrod chuckled and he reveled quietly in it when he saw that his friend was completely unamused by his joke. "Relax, it's fine" he assured her seriously, he didn't know it but Karai was surprised by how much she trusted his word.

She didn't have time to focus on that, however, because just then a log pulled up and the three people inside filed out and just as quickly she and Jarrod climbed in.

The logs were only built to hold five people at the most and the ride wasn't crowded so the workers didn't care that almost none of the logs were filled to capacity. Therefore Karai and Jarrod's log was sent off with only the two of them in it. There were no seat belts, only metal handle bars running along the inside walls of the log to hold onto, which Karai gripped hard with both hands as the log began move up the first, somewhat steep, hill. Jarrod looked back over his shoulder, whether it was to laugh at her panic stricken face or make to make sure she had actually gotten on Karai wasn't sure, but he chuckled when he saw she was already holding on.

"Don't worry, it always feels like you're going to fall out the first time" he said as if reading her thoughts, she really was afraid she would fall out the back. Finally they reached the top of the hill and rode slowly on flat tracks for all of thirty seconds before the log stopped at the edge of the drop, then accelerated downwards. The force sent both teens flying just a tiny bit forward and the abrupt, near stop, under the waterfall sent Jarrod cashing into the padded front of their log and Karai crashing into Jarrod. After just a few seconds Karai scooted back and apologized, only for Jarrod to look over his shoulder with a smile.

"For what? If you haven't noticed by now crashing into each other is part of half the rides?" He half joked, half seriously reminded.

It was true, though maybe not half, but a few of the rides they had been on had resulted in being knocked into each other, including one ride which spun so fast that they spent nearly the entire time pressed up against each other and unable to break apart due to the speed.

At that moment they reached the top of the second hill and were once again moving slowly alone the straight tracks before the log came to a halt at the mouth of the tunnel, as if to let the passengers look ahead at their doom. Karai felt her breath hitch in her throat, she hadn't felt this kind of fear in a long time, and she couldn't for the life of her understand why she was feeling it now. Suddenly the log began to teeter down, a warning that they were about to plunge into the tunnel.

"Ready?" Jarrod asked, more than ready himself.

Karai finally let out her breath before she gave her answer

"You know what, I'm going to crash into you anyway" she justified before, just as the log tipped down into the tunnel, she let go of the side bars and wound her arms around Jarrod's waist.

* * *

"But I'm gonna miss you" Haleigh whined as Karai pulled her sweatshirt over her head.

"Haleigh, I'm just going camping with my brothers, it's not like I'm leaving forever" Karai assured her but when she saw Haleigh staring sadly at the mattress she sat on, the smile faded from her face for a moment of realization before reappearing as she knelt down in front of her little sister. "Haleigh, I will always come back, I promise" she said, briefly she wondered if she was really saying the right thing, she knew very well how easily a broken promise can shatter a little girl's heart.

Haleigh got to her feet and hugged her sister, her small arms locking tightly around Karai's neck.

"Why can't I come with you?" The little girl whined once she had pulled away, Karai smiled sweetly at her.

"I told you, this is something my brothers and I have to do by ourselves, family tradition" she said, being as honest as she could.

The 'camping trip' was actually the spirit journey Leo had decided it was time for. He asked her to go along and she accepted, she knew that she needed this more than she would care to admit.

"But aren't we family?" Haleigh whined, she really didn't want Karai leaving overnight for fear that she would never come back, despite her promise.

"Then when you're sixteen you can head off into the woods overnight as long as grandma says it's ok" Karai sarcastically told her, knowing that right now the idea of going into the woods overnight was equal to a death sentence to Haleigh.

"But you're seventeen" Haleigh pointed out

"I lived in New York a year ago, I couldn't do it" Karai responded, once again reminded that less than a year ago she had been second in command of the Foot Clan.

Haleigh frowned again, knowing she was beat, and Karai kissed her forehead before standing up.

"I'll see you when I get back" she promised.

* * *

It was late at night and the Hamato siblings were sitting around their campfire when suddenly the flames began to grow, and turn blue.

"What did you put in that fire?" Karai questioned Raph, knowing he had been the one to build the fire.

"Just wood I swear!" Raph defended, but that was when the image of Master Splinter appeared out of the flames.

To say that the teenagers were shocked by the appearance of their Sensei would be an understatement, as would saying they were relieved when he confirmed that he was still alive. He told them what they needed to do, turning to each one of them individually before, at last, his gaze fell upon Karai.

"Miwa, my daughter, you have no idea how happy it makes me to see that you have allowed yourself to become a part of this family. But I sense that there is still a part of you which is hesitant to believe the truth" he said to her and she looked to the ground, ashamed. "You are a noble warrior in more ways than one my daughter, but in order to move forward you must come to terms with the past. Like flowers open their petals you must open your mind" he informed her, she looked back up at him and nodded but said nothing.

* * *

The next morning, after they all split up, Karai found herself standing on a small cliff only about five or six feet over a stream. She stopped and stared down at the shallow stream below, it appeared to be only a foot or so deep. She took a deep breath as she watched the water flowing below her

"I'm keeping an open mind Splinter" she said, though she knew that the rat couldn't hear her.

That was when she saw something, and shook her head thinking that she had to be going crazy. But even after shaking her head and rubbing her eyes it was still there, the person in the distance was still there, her mother was still there. Karai only had that one ripped photograph of her mother but she stared at it so often that she would know the woman anywhere, not that she ever expected she would need to.

"Mother?" she whispered under her breath "It can't be" again she whispered, afraid that if the woman heard her she would disappear.

Karai's plan was to approach the woman slowly, but the instant she took one step the woman looked at her, her mother's face looked right at her, and then she turned and ran.

"Wait!" Karai called out before taking off after her mother, jumping over the stream before breaking out in a full on sprint.

She bolted through the forest, running faster than even she knew she could go. All the while she kept her eyes locked onto the fleeing form of her mother, who never slowed down no matter how many times Karai called out to her. She jumped over tree roots and at one point even jumped over a fallen tree. In the back of her mind she knew that this could easily be an illusion, but it seemed so real. She had never before understood why people would chase after visions of the dead, no one could come back from death. But she had never before understood this kind of hope, this hope that her mother was really here and alive, it blinded all her rational senses.

"Mother!" Karai called out for what seemed like the thousandth time but her mother never once slowed down.

However Karai couldn't run anymore and she figured that out the hard way when she tripped over a tree root and face planted into the ground. Skidding on her stomach she finally came to a stop and picked her head up, tears of anger starting to form in her eyes.

"Mother!" She called out but the woman was lost from sight "please, please don't leave me again" she cried while getting to her hands and knees.

That was when she accepted that it had been an illusion, it wasn't real, her mother was gone. She state don her hands and knees for a while, crying harder than she had in a long, long time.

"Please, I don't know what to do." She said as she wiped her eyes but it was no use, she just kept crying. "I can't stay with Shredder, even if he is my father, he's a monster. I can't stay here, I can't keep running away from my problems. But, but if I am Shredder's daughter than the guys, they'll abandon me" she cried and suddenly she found that she didn't believe her own words. Would they abandon her? That was her fear, she knew it, that was why she wouldn't admit to believing she is Splinter's daughter until she has proof. It's because if it turns out not to be true she wants to protect herself from being cast out, right now she wants to believe that they're family but lately she's learned that a family is a lot more than blood, but if the turtles don't believe that than she has to be prepared to lose them.

Shakily she got to her feet and dried her eyes, this time they stayed dry.

"No, they won't" she decided, with that one sentence she let down the rest of her mental walls, she would keep her mind open. She would fully accept what the turtles had told her, she would full heartily believe every single word they had said. She just hoped she wouldn't regret it.


	16. Chapter 16

Karai walked home by herself as soon as they left the woods. She knew she could've stayed at the farmhouse, for a brief second she wanted to, but when Leo announced that they were going back to New York, without asking she knew that she was going with them. Not because they would force her to, she knew they wouldn't. But because she wanted to go, for her own good she has to, not because she has to know the truth but because she has to stop running. But it seems that doing the right thing is almost never easy.

* * *

Haleigh was sitting on the couch, watching Crognard, when the front door opened. Leaning over the arm of the couch she peered over at the doorway of the room and saw Karai on the other side shutting the front door behind her. A smile instantly lighting up her face the little girl hopped off the couch and raced over to her sister, instantly enveloping her in a hug.

"Hey" Karai greeted happily as she bent over to return Haleigh's awkward hug before detaching the younger girl from herself "alright get off, I wasn't gone that long" she joked and Haleigh giggled.

"But I missed you" the blond said innocently and Karai chuckled

"I missed you to" she said, however despite the cheerful smile on her face her mind was focused on many less pleasant thoughts.

For the rest of the day Karai was like that, she smiled and played with Haleigh like normal, stopping herself every time she began slipping into her thoughts. Everything seemed normal until Haleigh went to bed, that was when Karai decided she could drop the act.

She normally stayed up around two hours later than Haleigh, mostly just watching TV or reading. Too nervous to get into this inevitable conversation she sat in the chair reading while Mrs. Baker was on the couch watching TV, Karai had stopped paying attention when Mrs. Baker watched TV a long time ago, she couldn't stand what passed for reality TV. After about an hour or so the show ended and Mrs. Baker began channel flipping.

"Ugh, there's nothing on" the old woman complained before turning her attention to Karai, who still had her face buried in her book.

"Anything you can think of?" She inquired, trying to find something decent to watch.

"Nope" Karai answered, knowing very well that there was never anything good on Wednesday nights. When the flipping continued Karai decided that she couldn't put this off any longer and closed her book. "My brothers, um, they decided that they're going to go back to New York, tomorrow" she admitted.

Mrs. Baker looked at her and put down the remote so that she could focus on the conversation.

"Are you going with them?" She asked, she knew she was but she wanted to hear it for herself.

Karai looked at the ground, unable to answer at first.

"Come here" Mrs. Baker's sweet voice came, obediently Karai got up and walked over to the couch, taking the vacant seat beside her self appointed grandmother.

"Are you sure about this?" She asked.

There it was. That was the question Karai hadn't even realized she was so afraid of. The truth is no, no she isn't sure about this. She has no idea how this will play out or if she'll survive, if she'll ever be able to come home again. But at the same time she's caught up in the middle of this war and running away from it isn't the answer, she has to go back and end it. Tears began welling up in her eyes and she let out a shaky breath as she looked Mrs. Baker in the eyes.

"I have to go back, but I don't know what to do after that" she confessed "Grandma this is my home, but I've been separated from my father and brothers for way too long. I have to stay with them, I owe my father that much. But at the same time I don't want to leave here and…" Karai trailed off, not knowing what to say. But she was grateful when Mrs. Baker placed a comforting hand on the side of her face and using her thumb she wiped a tear away.

"Shh, listen to yourself" she said with a trace of laughter in her voice. "You sound so convinced that these two families you have are separate of each other. Karai look at the way Haleigh gets along with your brothers, she adores them as much as she adores you. If you feel you need to go with them then go, but don't ever think you're leaving a family behind because you're not. You're just going where you feel you need to be" she advised before wrapping Karai in a tight embrace.

For once Karai was more than willing to return her grandmother's hug, wrapping her arms firmly around the older woman's neck as she held just as tight, rocking back and forth slightly and pulling Karai with her.

"Just be careful, you and your brothers" Mrs. Baker said and Karai nodded against her shoulder

"We will" she promised.

* * *

She had to leave early in the morning, she had already called Paton and Jarrod last night to say goodbye, so now Haleigh was the only one left. Karai was up early, she couldn't sleep all night so at five in the morning she finally decided that it was an acceptable time to get up. She sat up slowly, being careful not to let the wooden boards underneath her mattress creak and wake Haleigh. She then crept down the ladder and landed silently on the floor, still as much of a ninja as she ever had been. She grabbed her backpack off the bedpost before tiptoeing out of the room and heading into the bathroom. When she changed she changed into the clothes she had been wearing the night she ran away; dark jeans, a short sleeved dark maroon t-shirt, and her jacket. Quickly she brushed her hair and teeth before dropping both her hairbrush and her toothbrush into her backpack. Once she was done she returned back to the bedroom she had been sharing with Haleigh. For a moment she just stood in the doorway, looking at her little sister sleeping peacefully. Her golden hair sprawled back messily behind her shoulders and some hanging in her face. Karai knew that somewhere underneath the blankets was a doll named Lilly, the one Haleigh had spent an hour searching for the previous night. Deciding that she had to get going she took a breath and approached the bed, crouching down beside the bottom bunk.

"Haleigh" she whispered, shaking the little girl's shoulder. "Haleigh wake up" she whispered and this time Haleigh's tired eyes fluttered open.

"Hm? What, whats going on?" She asked with a yawn

"Nothing, you can go back to sleep in a minute, I just wanted to say goodbye" Karai said and the look on Haleigh's face was almost one of horror.

"What?" She asked, she didn't understand. Goodbye? Where was Karai going? Why did she have to wake her up before sunrise and say goodbye?

"I have to go back to New York today-" Karai began explaining

"What?" Haleigh questioned louder, tears starting to form in her eyes.

"I'll come back I promise, I just need to find my dad" Karai tried to explain but Haleigh was shaking her head and had sat up, swinging her legs over the edge of her bunk.

"No, no don't, don't go" she pleaded, Karai gently moved a lock of hair behind the little girl's ear as she spoke softly.

"I have to, but I promise you that I'll come back soon as I can, ok?" She asked and Haleigh was silent for a moment, then nodded before hugging her goodbye.

"I love you" Haleigh murmured into her shoulder and Karai hugged back a little tighter

"I love you to" she said.

* * *

"Ok, all set?" Leo asked an hour later when it looked like everything had been packed up in the modified party wagon. It looked like they had everything and Donnie was saying goodbye to Dr. Cluckingsworth, when someone came running down the driveway.

"Jarrod?" Karai asked in confusion as the boy skidded to a stop in front of the group.

"What are you nuts?" He asked, trying to catch his breath, somehow he was completely unfazed by the fact that he was standing in front of four mutant turtles and one mutant chicken.

"What? Jarrod I explained this all to you last night" Karai started to explain

"I know" he said, his gaze falling past Karai and onto April for a split second "Thanks to those Kraang I already spent ten years wondering became of one friend, you're nuts if you think I'm going through that again" he said and judging by his backpack Karai figured that he wasn't here to stop her.

"Jarrod go home" she practically whispered through gritted teeth but he shook his head.

"Not a chance" he told her, staring her down, she only growled in response before turning and joining Mikey inside the van.

"Is he coming with us?" Leo awkwardly questioned his sister as she walked by him

"I can't stop him" she answered before moving on, secretly happy that Jarrod was coming.

* * *

The ride to New York went fairly well, Karai didn't pretend to be mad at Jarrod for very long, though she did become legitimately frustrated with him when his phone went off and it was Paton on the other end demanding to know where he was. But other than that it wasn't bad, the part where they had to literally drive the van through a wall to get into the city, yeah that was bad. Just as they got through and everyone recovered from being jostled around Karai heard something coming from the trunk and she froze, it sounded like a groan of pain, in the voice of a young child. She looked at Leo who shared her expression, he heard it to. With her heart pounding in her chest Karai shakily got up onto the way back seat and peered over, only to find none other than Haleigh struggling to re-hide herself underneath a blanket.

"Hale- What are you doing here?!" She demanded and Haleigh looked up at her, she chuckled in an attempt to rid Karai of her anger but she was also bracing herself for the worst.

"I, I didn't want to lose you!" The little girl spluttered out. In frustration Karai ran a hand down her face, before her eyes narrowed and she turned to glare at Mikey.

"You were hanging out by the trunk all morning, how did she get in?" She demanded, her voice suddenly deadly as Mikey avoided her gaze.

"Uh, well you see, funny story uh… Ok I knew! But it wasn't my fault! She gave me the puppy dog face!" The youngest turtles cried.

"MIKEY!" Just about everyone but Haleigh shouted in unison

"What were you thinking?" Leo and Karai simultaneously demanded of their little brother "and what were you thinking?" They addressed Haleigh, once again speaking in unison.

"I already told you!" Haleigh defended, now standing up in the trunk and holding onto the top of the seat to keep from falling over.

"Haleigh when I told you I'd come back soon as I could, first of all I meant it! Second of all I said soon as I could because I have no idea how long we're going to be here! It was hard enough to get into this city, there is no way we're getting out! Don't you get it Haleigh? Until the Kraang are taken care of we. can't. leave! And it's us against their entire army! I told you I'd come back as soon as I could because we aren't going back soon! You might be my age by the time this is all over! You might-" Karai was furious, as if this whole situation wasn't hopeless enough now she had to worry about protecting Haleigh. Thankfully Leo put a hand over her mouth before her scolding of the little girl could change to her taking out her frustrations.

"Karai" he said sternly, indicating that she had said enough. She leaned her head back and narrowed her eyes at Leo, but when he didn't remove his hand she was forced to calm down, and realize that Haleigh was now in tears.


	17. Chapter 17

Their upgrades to the party wagon worked like a charm against the Kraang and in no time at all they found themselves in the sewers, searching for Splinter.

"Are we sure we even want to go back to the lair?" Raph asked, seeing his home in total disarray once was enough for him, he didn't need to see it again.

"It's the best place to start looking for Sensei" Leo reasoned, he hadn't even seen the results of the Kraang's attack on the lair but even so he still wasn't the most enthusiastic about returning, he knew it'd be bad.

"Here" Karai said, handing Donnie back his phone after she borrowed it to call Mrs. Baker and inform her on Haleigh's whereabouts.

"Am I in trouble?" Haleigh asked in a small voice, her tears having only just ceased.

Karai let out a heavy sigh "Well you're grounded as soon as you get home, and grandma says she doesn't care if you're twenty-four when that happens, you're still grounded" Karai said with a small grin, honestly she had expected Mrs. Baker to be a lot angrier than she was. At first she had sounded almost relieved, probably because up until the phone rang she had no idea where her granddaughter had disappeared to. Once the relief passed she moved onto worry, and then anger which was just the threat of grounding, Karai figured that right now the woman was probably pacing around her kitchen ranting to herself.

Just then Casey stopped the van and without a word everyone got out, even those who had never been to the lair understood that they weren't far. They walked the rest of the way in silence, being cautious of anymore Kraang and/or mousers. When they finally reached the lair they found it exactly the way they had left it, destroyed.

"Man" Casey muttered under his breath as the group went inside and began spreading out around the lair.

Leo lightly tapped Karai on the arm and when she looked he signaled her to follow him, she obeyed. He led her into dojo and stepped around the scattered weapons and broken objects lying everywhere on the floor. Silently Leo made his way to a turned over, partially destroyed, shrine and from it he took a picture which was somehow still intact.

"I don't know if you still have doubts, but either way you should see this" he explained, handing the picture over to Karai.

She stared down at the photograph, a man she recognized as Hamato Yoshi before his mutation, a woman she without a shadow of a doubt knew was her mother, and a baby. She had only ever seen a handful of her own baby pictures, but she could've never seen one and still have known that she was the baby who in the picture appeared to be quite content.

_Wait till you grow up kid _she thought to herself, almost wishing that she could somehow stop that baby from growing up to make so many irreversible mistakes. But instead she just handed the picture back to Leo.

"Thanks" she said but she didn't have time to say anything else before laser fire was heard coming from the other room.

Instantly the two raced into the main room of the lair only to find the others either hiding from or fighting the scanner left behind by the Kraang which had gone into some kind of battle mode.

"What did you guys do?" Leo demanded as he and Karai joined the fight

"It wasn't us, it was Mikey!" Raph blamed to which Mikey extremely annoyed.

The scanner was firing blasts randomly, but Karai still saw one of the metallic tentacles about to send a blast underneath the pinball machine where Haleigh was hiding. Formulating her plan in a fraction of a second Karai whipped out a throwing star and with expert timing she threw it so that it flew halfway between the orb and the machine at just the right moment, the laser reflected off it and effectively vaporized the machine. For a moment the room was still, out of caution for another hidden drone everyone stood completely still, only a few of them daring to breath. When it became clear that nothing else was going to come out of nowhere and attack them Haleigh was the first to move, scrambling away from her hiding spot and rushing over to Karai. She attached herself to the leg of her older sister who responded simply by placing a hand on the side of her head. The next disturbance came from April who nearly doubled over in pain while clutching the sides of her head.

"April!" Casey exclaimed in alarm, all of them instantly looking in the direction of the red head and Donnie began to rush to her side but she soon stood back up.

"It's Splinter! I can sense him, that way!" She exclaimed pointing outside of the lair and within a split second the group was hurrying out of the lair.

They ran through the tunnels of the sewer, turning whenever April said to. Haleigh couldn't keep up so Karai stopped just long enough to load the little girl onto her back before sprinting to catch back up with the others.

"So your dad… is he a turtle too?" Jarrod questioned Karai as they ran side by side

"No he's a rat" she answered casually but Jarrod only looked at her in disbelief

"Why do I get the feeling that's not a figure of speech?" He asked and she giggled in response

"Because it isn't" she answered and that was when they skidded to a stop.

Not very far from them they saw him, they saw Splinter. He was clothed in nothing but underwear and was fighting off Stockman's mousers, but despite fighting the enemy it was clear that this was not the same Splinter which they had left behind. Gently Karai unloaded Haleigh but still grasped the little girl's hand inside her own, no one in their little group moved until Splinter finished with the last mouser and looked at them, then ran to attack. Karai barely had enough time to order Jarrod to watch Haleigh before she found herself joining the boys in their desperate attempts to restrain Splinter. They tackled him, trying to hold him back, calm him down, bring him back even, just anything.

"Sensei it's us!" Leo's voice shouted

"Splinter calm down!" Raph's voice chorused in with all the others attempts at getting their Sensei, their father, to come back to reality, until one move stopped the scene cold.

Splinter was struggling, and no one saw what happened exactly, but it looked like Raph was holding down Splinter's right arm when the crazed rat managed to break free of his son's grip, he lashed out of the tight grip and the next thing that was heard was a short but loud shriek. It was a shriek of surprise, not so much one of pain, but as Splinter broke his arm free he clawed whatever was directly in front of him, and that happened to be the face of his daughter. All four boys, Karai, and for a moment even Splinter stopped, their Sensei had struck the one person any of them thought may stand a chance at getting through to him in this state. The next thing they knew Splinter was thrashing about again and Jarrod had rushed up and twisted his previously free arm back at a painful angle.

"Get off of her!" He shouted furiously at the rat, even though he hadn't technically been on Karai.

But no sooner Karai had locked Jarrod's arms behind his back and yanked him away from her father.

"You get off of him!" She scolded, completely ignoring the blood trailing down the right side of her face from the scratch.

The next thing the group knew Splinter had broken free of his sons's restraints and was running off.

"Splinter!" Leo yelled after him but it was no use, and they watched him go.

For a moment they all just stood there, each one silently wondering what was to come next. Karai was the first to move when she released Jarrod from her lock and he turned around, examining her scratch. Splinter had gotten her right above the eye, then moved downwards until the mark ended next to her nose. It was three scratches, one from each claw, but it didn't look too deep.

"My first aid kit is back in the van" Donnie said, starting to head off in the direction of the van. Karai, as if protesting, walk past him and back towards the other three turtles who were yet to move.

"Don't worry about it, I'm fine" she assured before turning her attention to Leo "what now?" She asked.

Leo looked off into the direction where Splinter had gone and then back at the others, debating what to do. He knew what he wanted to do, and he knew that no one would have any objections to it. But now isn't the time, right now they have other priorities.

"We need to find a safe place to hide out" he said, almost in defeat.

"But Leo, what about Splinter?" Mikey asked in a sad voice

"For now he's too far gone. He's willing to hurt us if we get too close, we need an actual plan to bring him back but we can't focus on that until we have some kind of base" Leo explained, he hated this, he really, really hated this. He just wanted to go running after Splinter and snap him out of his clearly deranged state of mind, but that could take time and at the end of the day they would still need a safe place to sleep.


	18. Chapter 18

So they set up camp in the abandoned Antonio's pizza shop. They found a discarded couch in a nearby alley and dragged it there, at least that way they would have a place to sit as most of the booths had been destroyed. Donnie set up the few chemicals he had brought from the farmhouse in the kitchen before he set to work on Karai's eye.

"I told you Donnie I'm fine" she protested as she sat perfectly still, looking up while Donnie cleaned her cuts, being very careful not to spill any of the alcohol in her eye.

"Well you don't need stitches" he agreed "but it should still be cleaned since humans can get most of the diseases which rats can carry, and who knows where Sensei's been lately" he continued.

"Relax I've had my shots" Karai commented but Donnie ignored her and continued to wipe the partially dried blood away from her face.

Once he was done he let her return to the other room where she began helping the others clean up.

"Hey" Jarrod said, his voice just above a whisper

"Hey" Karai said back

For a moment it was nothing but silence between the two of them. Jarrod had a broom and was sweeping the floor of the restaurant while Karai crouched on the ground and carefully gathered bits of broken glass into her hands. Raph and Leo were on the other side of the room, caught up in their own argument. April was also sweeping and Casey was wiping down the counters while Mikey sat on the couch entertaining Haleigh.

"Listen, maybe I shouldn't have grabbed your dad's arm-" he began but surprisingly Karai interrupted him.

"No, thank you" she said awkwardly and she could practically feel Jarrod's quizzical eyes fixated on the back of her head. Sighing she got to her feet, biding herself some time to think by crossing the room and dumping the glass shards into the garbage. "I know he didn't mean it, he's not thinking clearly. But I told you my family is still new to me, I was raised by, well, a murderer. I still can't believe that the guys have my back, I never expected you to. Thanks" She said and she was being honest. All her life she had looked out for herself, this whole concept of being able to count on family is still fairly new to her, counting on friends is just foreign.

Jarrod smiled, sensing that his friend wasn't all that comfortable saying thank you; especially for something she knew she shouldn't have been surprised by.

"You're welcome" he said just barely loud enough to be heard.

* * *

"Karai?" Haleigh questioned in a sad whisper that night. Everyone was lying on the floor of the restaurant trying to sleep; save for Mikey who had taken the couch after everyone else continuously insisted that they were fine on the floor.

"What?" Karai asked, rolling onto her side so that she could face Haleigh.

"Did you mean what you said? When you said that I might be all grown up before I, I go home again?" The little girl questioned, tears beginning to gather in her eyes for what appeared to be the second time.

Sighing in thought Karai draped an arm over Haleigh so that she could rub her hand around her back, Haleigh responded by inching herself closer to her sister until her head was pressed against her chest.

"I don't know" Karai quietly admitted, "It's possible, but we all want this nightmare to end and I promise you that we're going to do everything we can to take down the Kraang as soon as possible." She promised and with that Haleigh's tears began to flow more freely.

The others were mostly awake, so almost all of them heard the two girls, but no one said anything. Haleigh cried for a good ten minutes, she was well aware that everyone else was awake and could hear her but she pretended that she was in her own little world, where only Karai could hear her cry. If someone said something, if someone shattered her little world, then she would try and stop. But no one did so Haleigh just lay there crying, apologizing for stowing away in the van, and saying that she doesn't want to grow up with out her grandma.

Karai couldn't really think of anything to say, and judging by the look April gave her when she looked up for help there was nothing she could say. All that she could do was hold Haleigh until she had cried herself out.

"What, what's going, going to hap, happen to your, your daddy?" Haleigh eventually choked through her sobs.

Karai closed her eyes for a brief moment, blinking away tears of her own. Gently she kissed the top of her little sister's head before whispering her answer.

"We're going to help him," she said, silently hoping that he could still be helped.

Despite being halfway across the room Raph heard Karai's words, albeit with some difficulty. But upon hearing her answer to Haleigh's question he found himself turning onto his stomach so that he could be more comfortable whilst talking to Leo who lay right above him.

"We should've gone after him today" He whispered and Leo sighed

"I know," he regretfully admitted "Splinter needs us, maybe more than ever, and some of us we'll go after him first thing in the morning, but as for this afternoon, what could we do Raph?" The oldest turtle asked his brother, turning his head to look at him, his face that of a soul who internally is hopelessly lost. "He's mourned Tang Shen and Miwa everyday for as long as we can remember, he knows that Karai is Miwa and out of all of us she's the one he hurt. He tried to claw her eyes out, by the time I processed what happened he was gone," he admitted shamefully. He knew the scene had gone slowly, heck he even had time to freeze before it went south, but he just couldn't believe that his Sensei, his father, would dare hurt his children. Then with no idea where he was going and Donnie concerned about Karai developing an infection he couldn't think of another option aside from find shelter and regroup.

* * *

The next day passed, then the next, and then the next. They looked for Splinter; everyday at least two of them would go out searching but everyday they came back empty handed. Finally one day the search had to be put on hold when the turtles went out and returned with a gang of some of their mutant friends, calling themselves The Mighty Mutanimals, and an injured Kurtzmen.

"We'll stay here and take care of Kurtzmen" April offered, after it had been decided that the two teams would work together and bring down the Kraang today, referring to herself, Casey, and Jarrod.

Leo nodded and then looked at Karai, he could tell that she wanted to go with them but he had another assignment for her.

"By now Shredder undoubtedly knows that we're in the city, and it's only a matter of time until he finds out all four of us went after the Kraang. Can I count on you and April to keep the others safe?" he asked of her, truthfully he wasn't sure if it was smart to leave only two trained kunoichi's to protect not only themselves, but also Casey, Jarrod, and Haleigh against the Shredder should he find them.

"Just be make sure you guys are safe" Karai told him with faint grin, Leo grinned right back before leaving with the other mutants.

As the mutants left Karai glanced over at Kurtzmen and sighed, she could only pray that Leo was wrong.

* * *

But Leo was right, after only a little more than an hour the boarded up door was broken down by two foot bots, and in walked Shredder. He came in, and for a moment just stood there. Immediately Karai, April, and Casey were in fighting stances while Jarrod and Haleigh stood nearly frozen where they were.

"Karai" Shredder stated coldly when he saw his former daughter glaring angrily at him "I've been looking for you" he said and Karai wouldn't admit it but his ominous voice sent a chill running up her spine.

"The turtles aren't here" Karai spat dangerously

"I know, I came to leave a message but now I have a better idea." Shredder explained and then he attacked.

They tried to hold him off, tried to take him down, but they were outmatched.

"Jarrod, take Haleigh and go!" Karai ordered as she struggled to hold her own against the monster she was raised by.

"Are you nuts? I'm not leaving you here!" Jarrod responded

"Just go!" She shouted back, really not in the mood to argue with him.

Jarrod almost said something else, whether it was an argument or an agreement not even he was sure, but it doesn't matter. Before he could even get a word out April hit her knees, her hands pressing hard against her temples, the only reason she wasn't taken out by a foot bot is because Casey was right there.

"Red, what's wrong?" The hockey player asked in concern as April picked herself up.

"It's Sensei! He's close, I can feel it!" She announced

"Go find him, we'll handle things here!" Karai ordered, still struggling to fight against the Shredder. For a moment April was frozen as if debating if she should really listen or not. "Go!" Karai repeated and so April decided to listen and ran out of the building.

"The rat" Shredder growled, it only motivated Karai to fight harder against him.

* * *

April ran as fast as she could, keeping her eyes peeled for Splinter as she went. She had only run a block before she found him; he was in the back corner of an ally tearing at what looked to be trash with his teeth.

"Sensei!" She gasped, jogging towards him. Instantly he became alerted to her presence and turned around to hiss at her, she stopped in her tracks. "Sensei it's me, April. Come on Splinter I know you're in there; we've been looking for you, all of us. Karai's with us too Sensei, Miwa is with us, and she misses you." April pleaded but it did little good. Slowly she started to approach him "please Splinter, please remember" she begged, her voice nearly on the verge of tears. Cautiously she reached out a hand towards him, thinking that maybe, just maybe, she could use her telepathy to reach him.

He shrunk away and hissed in response but he didn't try to run, and April took that as a good sign.

"Splinter please" she pleaded just as she touched his forehead; she focused on reminding him of who he is.

She was in the middle of doing this when a faraway scream momentarily interrupted her concentration, but she recognized it and that only made her focus so much more.

_Karai! Splinter please, Miwa's in trouble! _She mentally shouted and the next thing she knew she was involuntarily pulled from her thoughts, and Splinter was staring at her with recognition.

"April?" He asked after a moment, as if unsure.

"Sensei!" She exclaimed, quickly throwing her arms around the still hunched over rat's neck before pulling away. "Follow me," she ordered and he obeyed, he already knew why.

* * *

When Splinter and April reached the restaurant they were met with a depressing and somewhat horrific scene. One foot bot lay in pieces on the floor, and the humans didn't look much better. Splinter took it all in, one bruised and unconscious human boy was laying on the floor, Jack Kurtzmen lay on the couch in the same if not worse condition, Casey's voice was coming frantically from the kitchen saying something about Donatello's first aid kit, and off to the side of the room a little girl with tears in her eyes was kneeling over his daughter, who lay on her side on the floor awake, but just barely.

"Miwa" his heart broken voice said as he hurried to her side, she picked up her head just as he knelt down.

"Father" she said, a smile gracing her lips. Splinter would never be able to put into words how relieved he was to hear her voice, although breathy, was strong as ever.

He looked to assess her injuries and it only took a moment for him to notice that she didn't have her top arm draped over her middle for comfort; it was to hold in the blood. He gasped and gently pushed her onto her back, knowing that the dirty floor was doing nothing for her wound. She grimaced as he did this, her face briefly contorting into an expression of pain, but she allowed it. Once on her back she kept her hands pressed firmly against her wounded hip, wishing Casey could hurry up and find the medical tape already.

"It was meant for me." Haleigh muttered and only now did Splinter look directly at her. "He was trying to get me, but she stopped him." The little girl continued, Karai frowned upon hearing this.

"Haleigh he was only using you to get to me. I'm the one who ran away from him, he wanted me, no way was I letting you get caught in the cross fire." The kunoichi scolded, Splinter looked down at his daughter almost in disbelief, last time he saw her she was so angry and now, now she had risked her own life to save a little girl from the Shredder.

"Got it" Casey's voice rang out as he came rushing into the room, carrying Donnie's first aid kit. "Splinter, you're back," he said in relief when he saw the rat kneeling on the floor.

Splinter smiled at the boy who was now joining him on the ground.

"Go attend to Kurtzmen and your other friend, I will take care of Karai." He said and Casey nodded.

As the hockey player got up and left, going to try and shake Jarrod awake, Splinter began to use the alcohol in the medical kit to clean his daughter's side. She was hesitant to move her hands, she knew she had lost a decent amount of blood already and was afraid that removing the pressure would let any blood she had managed to hold in escape and it would be too much. But she knew that she had to so slowly she took her hands away and rolled up her shirt so that the fabric would not be in the way.

The instant that she felt the alcohol against her flesh Karai shut her eyes tightly, hoping the stinging pain would be over quickly. She opened her eyes again after a moment, and saw that Haleigh's face was growing paler by the second.

"Haleigh, why don't you go help Casey?" She suggested, though she doubted there was actually anything for the little girl to help Casey with.

"No I want to stay with you!" Haleigh nearly cried; Karai rolled her eye in response.

"I'll be fine" Karai promised and before Haleigh could argue April returned, in all the chaos almost no one noticed until now that she had left a second time.

"The people, they're back!" She exclaimed in excitement, finally giving the group some good news.

"Go with April, go find the turtles and tell them Splinter's with us." Karai said to Haleigh who looked unsure, but she didn't protest.

"Go" Karai gently encouraged and so Haleigh hurried off.

It was then that Splinter finished with the alcohol and moved on to bandaging the wound. In order to make it wrapping her side easier for her father Karai propped herself up on her elbows, lifting herself off the ground.

"Geez Karai, are you trying to kill yourself?" Jarrod's voice commented. Casey had finally gotten him up and now he was approaching his injured friend.

"It makes bandaging a lot easier" Karai defended, before her father could agree with her friend.

Jarrod, however, rolled his eyes and knelt down behind Karai.

"Here, if you insist on sitting up" he said and pulled her onto his lap. She looked like she wanted to protest for a minute but knowing he wouldn't let her go anyway she kept her mouth shut.

Just as Splinter finished wrapping the tape around his daughter's abdomen he looked to her face and this time he noticed the fading scar over her right eye, and memory came rushing back.

"Your eye" he said shamefully, Karai panicked for a minute, unsure if her father remembered where the mark had come from or not.

"It's fine, it's an old cut. I got it in a sparring match with Razar the day I ran away" she quickly lied but Splinter only stared at the ground in regret.

"No, you didn't." He admitted sadly

"Father you weren't in your right mind" she tried to tell him but he didn't say anything.

"Sorry for twisting your arm backwards" Jarrod sheepishly apologized, figuring that somebody had to break the silence.

"No, I am glad you did. It is good to know that my daughter has found someone who will protect her, no matter what" he said and both Karai and Jarrod went wide-eyed.

"Oh, no we're not…" Jarrod stuttered

"No" Karai quickly added, Splinter simply chuckled and left to check on Kurtzmen.


	19. Chapter 19

They left the city that night, well some of them did. Jarrod and Haleigh both wanted to stay but, despite Donnie's warning's that she should take it easy and rest, Karai practically dragged them both into the van, Casey said he would drive them back to Northampton. Against Donnie's orders Karai went with them.

"You do realize you were stabbed in the stomach right?" Donnie questioned when trying to get her to stay. "You really shouldn't be traveling" he insisted but she only rolled her eyes.

"First off, Mr. 'its important to be accurate', I was stabbed in the hip. Second those two ran away because of me, there's no way I'm making them face their families alone" she said to him, her face hard with determination.

She didn't know what exactly she expected Donnie to say; maybe she thought he might try again to talk her out of it. Maybe he would threaten to tell Leo or Splinter, maybe he would even argue until she gave up. But what she hadn't expected was for him to sigh almost in fear.

"Just come back ok?" He asked of her.

For a moment she was taken back by this but after getting over her initial surprise she nodded. "I will," she promised with a small smile.

* * *

The ride back to Northampton Jarrod sat up front with Casey while Karai took the back with Haleigh, who was staring sadly down at her lap.

"What's with you?" Karai asked with a chuckle but she got no response from the little girl. "Hey, we beat them. You're going back to grandma, everything's alright" she reminded her sister but Haleigh merely pouted.

"No it's not," she finally said

"What are you talking about?" Karai asked, trying to get a look at Haleigh's sad face but she refused to meet her gaze.

"You got hurt because of me," she said and Karai frowned before gently placing her hand underneath the little girl's chin.

"Look at me, come on look at me" she said it a little more forcefully the second time when Haleigh refused at first. "I've been hurt before ok, I was getting hurt long before I met you and I'll probably always be getting hurt," she said but Haleigh still didn't look convinced. "Besides you're my sister, it's my job to look out for you" she said with a smile and Haleigh's face lit up, so happy to hear Karai say she was her sister.

* * *

The return to Northampton had been less than ideal for Jarrod, who after being slapped and then hugged by his twin sister was grounded by his parents from now until a date so far in the future that it was still yet to be determined. As for Mrs. Baker, Karai had expected her to be angrier. But when she and Casey showed up at the front door with Haleigh the first thing the woman did was hug her young granddaughter. After what felt like an eternity Mrs. Baker stood and threw her arms around Karai, however she was so happy to see her that she hadn't realized how heavily Karai had been leaning on Casey. However Haleigh saw it when her older sister's eyes squeezed shut in pain due to her grandmother squeezing her wounded hip so tightly.

"Grandma stop, she got hurt," Haleigh said as she pulled at her grandmother's pant leg.

Upon hearing this Mrs. Baker let go of Karai who, although equally as happy to see her grandmother, was grateful Haleigh said something because she knew that she wasn't going to herself.

"Are you alright?" Mrs. Baker asked in concern but Karai only smiled at her

"I'll be fine," she assured and though Mrs. Baker didn't really look convinced she let the issue go and brought the three kids inside to hear what had happened since they left.

* * *

Despite the constant pain in her side Karai found that tonight was quickly becoming the first night in a long time during which she had been actually happy. Of course she had been very happy back in New York with her father and brothers, but tonight she didn't have to worry about the Kraang or Shredder hunting her down and killing her in her sleep. It was also nice to be back at the Baker's house, and even better to see Haleigh excitedly telling her grandmother, aunt, and uncle, about all the dangers they had faced in the past few weeks.

"You let her go near those robots?" Ken questioned Karai accusingly when Haleigh first began talking at dinner; the eye-roll from his wife went noticed by everyone except the man it was meant for.

"I tried not to but I was near them and it was either keep her close to me or leave her alone in the temporary lair, would you have preferred I'd done that?" Karai demanded almost smugly.

"I would have preferred you'd have never come here in the first place!" Ken shouted, for a moment time seemed to freeze.

Everyone knew he was thinking that, from the moment he met her they knew. But no one had ever expected him to actually say it to her face.

"Would you have preferred she left your niece unconscious on the side of the road?" Mrs. Baker's grave, and dangerously low, voice said, ending the silence. "Would you have preferred she continued wandering on the side of the highway? Or would you have preferred that she have stayed living with a murder in New York?" The old woman began ranting, staring down her son-in-law with a death glare.

"Maybe we should leave" Karai whispered, both to Haleigh and Casey, but neither of them moved and so Karai didn't either.

"For God's sake Ken people can't control the circumstances they come from, and frankly I can't believe you have such a hard time understanding that! You know all about my past!" Mrs. Baker shouted, she would've gone into detail about it but Haleigh was still present and, despite what her young granddaughter had seen in New York, she didn't want to go to such a dark place in front of her.

"Because by the time I met you that's what it was! Your past!" Ken shouted

"Where I came from is my past!" Karai defensively interrupted, standing up and leaning heavily on the table for support. "It's a recent past, but it's past." She grunted, momentarily fighting to stay on her feet, Donnie warned her about getting up and moving to fast.

"Karai-" Mrs. Baker began, her voice instantly back to it's gentle and concerned nature.

"I'm fine" Karai insisted as she slowly eased her grip on the table but soon found that she no longer had anything to say. "I'm going to go get the stuff I left in Haleigh's room," she said awkwardly before leaving the room.

* * *

She didn't actually leave anything behind when she left for New York, everything she owned fit in her backpack and she took it with her when she left. So instead she was sitting on the floor of the bedroom, she had originally tried to climb up onto her bunk but that just resulted in nearly reopening her wound due to how she moved and she decided to just sit on the floor rather than risk moving the wrong way again and completely tearing her hip open. She sat there for what seemed like forever, Haleigh came after her after only a few minutes, pleading with her to come downstairs. Karai simply smiled and said that she would be down in a minute, satisfied with the answer Haleigh left and Karai did have every intention of going down after a few minutes, but that was when Ken showed up in the doorway.

Karai looked at the ground, avoiding his hard and strangely sorrowful gaze, picking at her nails as though she didn't even notice him.

"I'm sorry," he finally said

_No you're not _Karai thought to herself upon hearing his words. "It's fine," she muttered, still not looking at him.

"After you left, Sharon asked you're friend what happened to you" he began, Karai found it odd when she could hear his voice breaking. "He said that, that you were stabbed… by the man who, who raised you?" He said it as if it were a question and when Karai looked up she saw that for whatever reason this man who seemed not only to not care about her, but to actually hate her, was almost crying. When she nodded in confirmation of Casey's story Ken ran a hand over his face, trying to compose himself. "Haleigh said, he was aiming for her?" He asked and again Karai nodded, looking away again. She could tell that Ken felt bad about the way he had treated her, like it was just now dawning on him how much hell she had really gone through.

"Where would it have it her?" He finally asked, that was when Karai understood; he wanted to know just how close he had been to losing his niece.

She thought about it for a minute, trying to remember exactly what happened.

"I'm not sure, I saw him lunge at Haleigh and my instincts took over." She truthfully explained and Ken nodded.

"I know I haven't given you a fair chance-" he began but Karai cut him off.

"It's ok. I wouldn't have given me a fair chance either if I were you." She told him, he left her alone after that but there was an unspoken agreement between them, and she knew that Ken was going to at least try and have an open mind.

* * *

Two years had gone by since the Kraang invaded New York, and Haleigh was presently laughing with her friends, anxiously awaiting the end of the school day. Secretly she was kind of glad Elaine was home sick today, yesterday she had been complaining that her brother had cancelled their fishing trip to go visit his girlfriend, which of course annoyed Haleigh. It just wasn't fair, the last time she had seen her sister was six months ago when she came for her ninth birthday, and she had barely talked to her since then. Now Jarrod was going to visit her and she was stuck in school.

"Whatever" Haleigh muttered as she pulled herself out of her thoughts, she didn't even need to be upset because she knew that she could call Karai if she wanted to.

After a few more minutes the bell finally rang and the kids rushed from their various classrooms towards the front doors of the school. Once Haleigh got outside, and said goodbye to her friends, she was about to start walking home, when someone caught her eye. She almost didn't believe it but there, standing at the near edge of the school parking lot and waiting patiently, was her big sister.

Karai giggled when she saw Haleigh notice her and break into a run, hurrying over and jumping her. Karai laughed as she caught the excited nine year old, letting her sit on her arms.

"I take it you missed me?" She joked and Haleigh laughed before getting down and the two girls began their walk home.

"I didn't know you were coming home!" Haleigh exclaimed and Karai just laughed

"Well I had to surprise someone and Jarrod drove me here so that was out" Karai explained as they walked.

"So what's going on?" Haleigh questioned, knowing full well that Karai normally only came home for her birthday, her grandma's birthday, and sometimes for a visit during the summer. She never just randomly called Jarrod to come to New York and get her, so Haleigh figured that this was important.

"Not much, what about you?" Karai asked but Haleigh wouldn't give in.

"I mean why did you come home?" She asked, knowing Karai would know what she meant, which of course she did.

"What I can't just come and visit my baby sister?" Karai teased as she ruffled Haleigh's hair, completely ruining whatever wasn't tied into her ponytail.

Sticking her tongue out Haleigh pulled out her hair tie and let her hair, which had gotten longer in the past two years, fall freely.

"Come on!" She groaned in annoyance, wishing her sister would just tell her the reason for her visit already.

"Alright fine" Karai gave in "well I've saved up a good amount of money from my job in New York and I've found another job out here, Paton wants to move out of her parents house and we figure between the two of us we'll have enough for rent so I've decided to move back and I found an apartment here and town" she explained, trying to control the smile on her face when she noticed Haleigh's grin growing wider and wider as the explanation progressed.

Haleigh had known that Karai planned on moving back someday, but she always thought that if 'someday' ever actually came it would be after at least five years.

"Really?" She asked excitedly and Karai nodded

"But if my brother's ever need me back in New York I'm going" she said, of course she had every intention on staying in contact with her father and brothers even if they never called saying she needed to come back, that was a call they all hoped would never be made.

Haleigh just smiled and hugged her big sister excitedly; so happy to know that this time she wasn't leaving.

* * *

**Hey so I know that this last chapter is a little late but I just want to say thanks to everyone for reading and ****reviewing! It really makes me feel good to see people enjoyed this story! You guys are the best!**


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